Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void

I like her book Stiff better.
It's fine. Space is interesting and that's fair.

I liked the chapters about the space animals and the tests they did on clothing and what not.

But I do think there is too much focus on astronauts having sex in space.
Who cares if they do. I think there are more interesting things to be concern with.
You know, like DEATH.

Is there any other author who is so willing to throw themselves into their research as Mary Roach? The woman drank recycled URINE for this book, for goodness sake.

As always, Roach's book left me with facts to horrify my friends and family. This is why I love her so. Packing for Mars looks into the space program, and all the very unattractive things the prospective astronauts have to go through in order to be launched into space.

Heroes, yes, they are. Awe-inspiring, yes, they are. Even more so now that I know all the trouble they have to go through just to poop in space. A lot of money is spent researching how astronauts use the restroom, how they eat, down the to tiniest thing. Now I also know that astronauts get steak and eggs on launch day - because those foods are almost 94% digested, which leaves little to be....released later.

Someday, NASA wants to plan a trip to Mars, our closest planet. Which is still millions of miles away. We've landed unmanned vehicles on Mars, but they want a manned mission. Initially, it seems to be a one way trip, which there are volunteers for. Now they are trying to figure out how to get enough food to Mars so that the astronauts can come home. It's incredibly interesting to read.

And I still have plenty of fun facts to scare friends and family.

I was really looking forward to reading this one as a big advocate for humanity moving forward with expanded space exploration. This book was not worth the wait. Although it was a quick and sometimes entertaining read it failed to hit the target you would expect from the title. Mary Roach attempted to create a book that provides fascinating insights on what considerations make humans fit and unfit for space exploration. The flow, however, is stilted in many areas. She inserts a lot of cheeky writing that aims to be clever but is often just cheesy. Additionally, she went a mile wide on topics and therefore some topics get cut off too early while others ran on too long. To her credit the citations and research is exhaustive. So you can bank on the accuracy of what topics you do learn about. It felt like a rushed attempt at the end to pull it all together with a call to dream big. For each topic Mary Roach identifies lots of problems but offers no firm draft of what a comprehensive plan would look like today. Part of that short coming could be due to the time period in which was written and also security restrictions. In the end, the whole book could have been reduced down to a long form article in Nature or Scientific American. It may actually work better as a short documentary on Nature or NASA’s own channel. Cosmos by Carl Sagan is a more accurate read on mankind’s future in space exploration.