Packing for Mars

"Of these books, this one and Panek’s book are the ones written by non-scientists who are both particularly talented writers. The theme of Roach’s book is ‘How does gravity, or the lack of it, affect us as humans?’ So in Packing for Mars , she tries to get you to understand the physical and psychological impacts of going into space on humans. What does space travel do to your bones, your heart, your brain? What is it like to defecate in space? Have people had sex in space? She finds answers to lots of these questions, but not all. Some of them are personal enough that folks at NASA aren’t inclined to discuss them. Packing for Mars is not the type of book you want to read as you’re eating. A lot of the sanitation issues, for example, are pretty grotesque. ‘What is it like to defecate in a plastic bag while floating in zero g?’ is not a question I would ask someone who’s been to space—but Roach does, and we get a great deal of uncomfortable, but fascinating, detail. I probably was more keen to go to space before I read Roach’s book. It sounds absolutely horrible, to tell you the truth. I love to learn about it, but I don’t know that humans belong in space when you see how challenging it is to survive even for a matter of days—and certainly for the people who are up there for years. We evolved with gravity, and that’s the way we work best. Everything seems to be slightly off kilter when you get into space and try to do without gravity. That’s partly why I called the book Crush . I’m fond of gravity. Sure, it can kill you if you don’t respect it. But I prefer living with gravity down here. I’ll let other people get on without it in space."

"I picked this book because, as I talk about science as part of the everyday world, it is so good to find writers who really make an effort to reach out to a wider community. I really admire Mary Roach’s ability to take science and make it both fascinating and accessible to people who wouldn’t normally love science. She does a great job of keeping science incredibly accurate and yet making it very friendly. Yes, and she is so good at picking the examples that will resonate with everyone else. I love the way she starts that book. She is talking right to the reader and saying you are the problem, you with your little body and your wussy fears. It draws you right in. She is just so good at connecting science to the rest of us. That is exactly right. I can’t say too often that science doesn’t just matter to other scientists. Science shapes the world we live in and people actually really want to know about it. If you were figuring out how to understand the world, wouldn’t you want to share that knowledge?"