Showing what life on Mars would REQUIRE is too narrow? Too local? Yes it's about one person surviving but it's also about what it required to survive on Mars, the political reality of what space exploration depends on. Did he miss the head of Nasa making decisions about how events effect funding? The PR department handling the news so that it plays well? How is this not about heroic scale space exploration?
Yep totally, one of the things I love about Sci-Fi is that there could be a mix of The Culture, The Belt, and Nasa based stories and it's all Sci-Fi. I happen to be a massive fan of near future Sci-Fi because I draw hope from it. I love Foundation and The Culture also but they are SO big that for me it's hard to tell the difference between fantasy and "High Tech Sci-Fi" often. The Expanse feels within reasonable reach, The Martian or For All Mankind much more so and given the events in the world that means a lot IMO.
