Finished 17/06/2022

Packing For Mars

Mary Roach

⭐⭐⭐⭐

• Science

Read thanks to Thomas Frank, really nice and fun, I would reread it. It covers the difficulties of organizing space travel, especially with potential trips to Mars in mind. For a quick example: the flag to plant on the Moon and the engineering problems to solve, because there is no wind there (so you add wire so it looks like it is waving), but then deployment outside the cabin becomes cumbersome, and the exhaust can scorch it (so you design a casing), but the astronauts must be able to plant it easily (so you run tests). Thousands of dollars for details that seem trivial at first.

Space travel without gravity is full of things like this.

Chapters

• The psychological specifications for being considered for a space mission: they used to choose tough military pilots; now it is better to have scientists and people who work well in groups, since they will be living in small spaces for weeks
• The psychological effects of being in space
• Initial precautions of going to space:
• Testing procedures: introduces parabolic flights and how many people cannot avoid vomiting
• Cadavers used for anatomically precise testing: grim, and it does not specify where they are sourced. They use them as dummies to see whether high-G impacts can cause physical problems for astronauts during launch and landing on Earth
• Animal testing
• Simulation procedures
• Space hygiene: I loved it, excellent; it goes into detail on how to wash and use the toilet in space, and it is truly gross
• The physiological effects of being in space: talks about test subjects who lie in bed for weeks to see if there are long-term effects on bones and the back
• Sex in Space: best chapter in the book
• Preparing food for space: the food used to be mediocre, all freeze-dried; now it is better, they even have a small microwave
• The author’s thoughts on space travel: nice ending where she explains the magic of actually being in space, and how all the sacrifices she discussed will move us forward in human history as happened with the Moon. I would reread it