Why did NASA send a IT specialist to Mars?
Why is there an entire crew position primarily dedicated to computer systems. The role is not completely useless because spacecraft do contain a lot of software and there seems to be nontrivial networking with the “data dumps “ but all of this seems like ancillary activities for space exploration. Maybe in the future software continues to get worse and the “I have two outlooks and neither are working” problem extends to critical systems.
Beth Johanssen does do some cool computer stuff for the plot like decoding the email attachment (level 1 tech support) and hijacking the Hermes from NASA control (hacking the planet). The other hack job of the Pathfinder rover was done with remote staff which makes sense because you don’t have to be next to computers to interact with them.
The reason I am thinking of this is in the end of the book Johanssen says “it is strange to sysop a launch”. What does that mean? Is she moderating an irc channel contained in the MAV? Applying Windows updates at the worst time? The Artimis II mission in real life does have a Mission Specalist whose job is to monitor system status of the rocket during launch so that matches what Johanssen would be doing. Maybe a role like this would exist but it seems odd that it would develop into a system administration job in a more developed space program.
Did Andy Weir need to write a second self insert where he could emagine himself as a software developer who gets to go to Mars?