PASADENA, California: When Matt Damon needed to play an astronaut stranded on Mars, he and director Ridley Scott were able to turn to US space agency NASA to make the extreme circumstances of “The Martian” as scientifically accurate as possible.

“We’re kind of on the cusp of being able to do everything that happens in the movie,” Damon told Reuters, speaking of space exploration.

“With the right funding and the right attention, these are the kinds of things that we will be exploring in the very near future and this is going to be a part of our kids’ lives.”

“The Martian,” based on Andy Weir’s 2011 novel of the same name, follows Astronaut Mark Watney (Damon) who is stranded on Mars after his team, led by actress Jessica Chastain’s Captain Lewis, presume he is dead in the aftermath of a powerful Martian storm. With no means of communicating and the next manned mission to Mars four years away, Watney tries to survive on the deserted lands of Mars, using his skills as a botanist to grow food using Martian soil.