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The book "The Martian" is earning high praise from space, and the astronaut-reviewer can't wait to see the soon-to-be-released movie.

NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren said Tuesday from the International Space Station that both he and crewmate Scott Kelly have read the novel by Andy Weir. Lindgren told reporters he really enjoyed the book and hopes to get a copy of the film beamed up to orbit on Oct. 2, the day of release, or shortly thereafter.

The astronauts chatted with the star of the film, Matt Damon, last month by phone. They called the actor -- who portrays fictional astronaut Mark Watney, who's mistakenly left for dead on Mars -- while he was touring Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. [...]

Like Kelly, Damon recently signed up to have his name sent to Mars aboard NASA's next lander, named InSight. The spacecraft is due to launch next March and arrive at Mars next September. Posing with his "boarding pass" to the red planet, Kelly noted in a tweet over the weekend that in the time he's already spent in orbit, he'd be almost to Mars. He and Kornienko took off from Kazakhstan in March.

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