Packing for Mars

By taking us through all the banal, ludicrous details of sending people into space, Roach succeeds in suddenly investing the space program with humor (I mean, who doesn't like poop jokes? AT LEAST A LITTLE?) and, oddly, humanity. While her focus on the mundane (how do you design a zero G toilet? what kind of food do astronauts?) may make you yearn for a bit more FACTS, this is an addictive read. She loads the book with humorous, insightful snippets from primary docs (shuttle transcripts, astronaut interviews, etc.). It's hard not to be dazzled. Like “The Right Stuff”... for poopy pants.

By now, anybody picking up a Mary Roach book knows that they're going to find something exhaustively and joyfully researched, packed with quirky tidbits, and written with that often-missing light hand and appreciation for the absurd. Apply all of that to the fundamentally absurd business of space travel and you have Packing for Mars. This book is incredibly charming, with something both for those overflowing with prurient interest (pooping in space! poop flying around in space! sex in space!) to the fascinating details nobody ever thinks about, but that become vital once Roach explains them. I actually stole this book from a houseguest (sorry, Ross), and I'm glad I did because like her other books, Packing for Mars was excellent reading and the perfect book for a long commute. (If I had to rank this among her other books, I'd say this was better than Spook – by far the weakest of her books, I think – and slightly better than Bonk, although nothing will ever come close to the revelatory wonder and tenderness of Stiff.)

I got halfway through this and just lost interest. Given that it's now at the bottom of a rather hefty pile on my nightstand, I'm going to admit defeat and call it a dnf.

I would wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who is infatuated with space and wants to know a bit more about fascinating space tests. Some are more pleasant to read, while others are extremely disgusting. My hat goes off to those who put their time, health, and bodies into the space program. If it were not for that space challenge so long ago, we would not have the incredible gizmos and gadgets we all use on a daily basis to keep us safe, entertained, and more importantly, alive. I would rate this in the 3.5 range. It would have been much higher, but I couldn't get past the bathroom sections. Maybe it was because I was eating dinner. Word of warning. Skip those sections while eating a plate of spaghetti.

This book was very amusing, but also straight-up informative. The author has done a lot of research into the problems that arise from putting humans into space, and the history of addressing them. I'd go so far as saying that this is essential reading for anyone planning to write a book, movie or TV show set in space.

This started slow but ended up being fascinating. The chapters on bathing and cleanliness were DISGUSTING! I loved them!

A fun book, with nice ideas, and a fun way of telling them to you. It's a little out of date by now but still a good read.

Tato kniha vás krásně odradí od cestování do vesmíru či dokonce na Mars. Je tolik problémů, které se nepodařilo ještě vyřešit, aby člověk mohl pohodlně žít a cestovat ve vesmíru (z vesmírných stanic se nevysílá první dva dny, protože astronauti po příletu často zvrací, než si zvyknou na stávající změnu - i ti zkušení).
Lidé, kteří mají rádi sex, by rozhodně měli zůstat na zemi, protože zatím se nepodařilo najít řešení, jak správně tento akt provádět ve vesmíru (Pornoprůmysl se snažil natočit sex ve stavu bez tíže, ale marně. Tak to nafejkovali a snažili se to komunikovat jako reálný sex ve stavu beztíže. Mimochodem toto prvenství má česká pornoherečka Silvia Saint), dokonce se to nepodařilo ani pokusným krysám.
Mary Roach se s čtenáři podělí o spoustu zajímavých faktů, které vzešly z experimentů NASA a jiných společností. Kniha může být užitečná i pro ty, kteří mají rádi psychologii a fyziku. Zjistíte spoustu zajímavostí, které by vás nenapadly, ale NASA jim věnovala spoustu energie, času i peněz.
Ale uvědomíte si, kolik toho pořád o vesmíru nevíme.

Mary Roach continues to impress. Fast, funny, and fascinating jaunt through space history

I love Mary Roach's writing and this book was no exception. Favorite chapters were sex in space, pooping in space, and food in space.

(Read Harder 2017: #13 Read a nonfiction book about technology.)

A perfect accompaniment for the newly-released ‘The Martian', this 2010 book by Mary Roach is both fun and insightful like her other books. Roach takes a look at behind-the-scenes (sometimes, literally) at the various machinations of space travel. She presents a lot of historical context and fun facts from the Gemini, Apollo, and the later Space Station missions.

Even wonder how astronauts poop in space? Well, wonder no more (spoiler alert! You need good aim). The more interesting parts are ironically the most boring parts of an astronaut's journey. The drudge work of research that went into finding out what happens when people don't bathe for 2 weeks in zero gravity or the kind of food they have to eat and even whether they do stir-crazy when propelled into space at mind-numbing speeds into the frontier that no man had ever been blasted into. Space travel is exciting but preparing for it may not necessarily be. The nerds on the ground and at mission control are just as committed as the guys that get to ride the rockets. Forget Columbus, these guys were the real pioneers.

Excellent non-fition combining my excitement of space exploration with actual stories of how we got where we are now in the space races to return to the Moon and the first human mission to Mars.

I first saw Mary Roach on an episode of the Daily Show, promoting some other, later book. I'd never heard of her, but my wife and I were immediately impressed, and agreed that we should pick up some of her books. Soon afterward, happily enough, I was given this book.

It's great. It fulfills its promise, and is just a lot of fun. Roach shows an unabashed willingness to dig into the crass, vulgar parts of space travel - the parts a five year old might ask about. She deals with all sorts of interesting practical questions that you generally don't hear about, and NASA might wish you still hadn't (how does NASA deal with penis size? Who knew they did?). She writes in an engaging, easy-going style, covering topics from what really happens when your suit leaks during a spacewalk to developments in low-gravity excretion. I'm pleased to say that she devotes a fair amount of time to the various animals used (pretty harshly) in space exploration, and if she's not as sympathetic as I'd have hoped, she does treat them with far more dignity than NASA did.

Roach is not afraid to go off on all sorts of fascinating tangents. That's one of the strengths, but also the fundamental weakness of the book. While it's titled “Packing for Mars”, Mars itself plays a pretty peripheral role - largely because there's no real plan to go there. Mostly, though, there's no clear destination in the book itself. It covers all these great subjects, but it doesn't add up to anything in particular. Despite that, it's a very good book.

If you've wondered about some of the practical mechanics of space travel - not how they make the rockets, but how people actually manage - this is the book for you. Don't look for any particular purpose - treat it as a book you dip into now and then for a chapter or two, and you'll be delighted.

This is the fourth book I've read by this author. I've been a fan since reading Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers back in 2004. This book is full of fascinating details about the nitty gritty life of astronauts in zero gravity. It doesn't take long to realize that the life of an astronaut is far from glamorous. In fact, the problem of waste management (i.e. going pee and poo) in zero gravity is a real... mess. Astronauts have a term for floating bits of fecal matter: “escapees.” And you can't open a window to help with the smell either. Astronauts on a short trip generally hope to be a little constipated just so they don't have to deal with it. Dealing with it actually takes about a good 45 minutes too. Anyway, there's more to this book than astronauts having to take a crap. And the author brings her sense of humor to bear on numerous occasions.

This was the year of Mary Roach for me: I had always been hesitant about her books - Bonk seemed to flippant, Stiff irreverant and she was altogether too popular - always a sign that a pop science author doesn't know what she or he is talking about.

So I picked up Packing for Mars because one of my friends was insistent that Mary Roach was actually a great author, and by the title it seemed the least likely to offend, and, to be perfectly honest, there needs to be a new law of physics to describe the force that over time pulls me in to any book on astronomy.

To say I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement. Roach is clearly a scientific writer, rather than a scientist, which is a niche in need of more authors: she writes with a fluidity that is lacking in some popular science books written by scientists, but more than that, she functions in this odd way as an audience surrogate - bringing with her the curiosity (sometimes scatological) of her readers and commenting along the way about her anticipation for meetings, her rationale for her questions and a description of how she finds out the information that she shares. It is a unique authorial voice and one that I enjoyed thoroughly.
The content itself is a complete exploration into the NASA space program - short on hoopla and long on (sometimes scatological) details. Roach is complete, explaining, for instance, every type of food tried, the nutritional assessments, texture and composition of astronaut food, followed up by how it is actually eaten, including concerns about the ability to swallow in space, and which were substantiated and which were not.

Yes, she is a little long on the scatology, but I think that bothers me more than it does the average reader. And while there is a heavy dose of humor, it is mostly witty and tongue-in-cheek, more than gross-out humor. I've been converted: Long live Mary Roach!

This is one of my new favorite books. I checked it out from the library, but might have to go buy it so I can enjoy rereading it at my leisure.

Actual science is so much more interesting than science fiction. Unlike the space-age vision of sterile space capsules pensive floating, actual space travel is full of fear, bravery and lots of bodily functions. Roach discusses the very human concerns of people in space, and the history of how we got there. Fascinating, and some of her best writing. I laughed out loud on numerous occasions.

Interesting information about past, present and future of space travel.

Funny, full of information, and well read. If you're interested in nonfiction about space travel at all, you should read this book right away.

I cackled like a maniac throughout this book. Part of it was really that funny and part of it was just that unbelievable (but true). It does cover some adult subjects, though, so I'd preview before turning teens loose on it.