Packing for Mars : the curious science of life in the void / Mary Roach.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The best-selling author of Stiff and Bonk explores the irresistibly strange universe of space travel and life without gravity.

Space is a world devoid of the things we need to live and thrive: air, gravity, hot showers, fresh produce, privacy, beer. Space exploration is in some ways an exploration of what it means to be human. How much can a person give up? How much weirdness can they take? What happens to you when you can't walk for a year? have sex? smell flowers? What happens if you vomit in your helmet during a space walk? Is it possible for the human body to survive a bailout at 17,000 miles per hour? To answer these questions, space agencies set up all manner of quizzical and startlingly bizarre space simulations. As Mary Roach discovers, it's possible to preview space without ever leaving Earth. From the space shuttle training toilet to a crash test of NASA's new space capsule (cadaver filling in for astronaut), Roach takes us on a surreally entertaining trip into the science of life in space and space on Earth.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

With wry humor and an often repellent degree of detail, New York Times best-selling author Roach (www.maryroach.net)-whose previous title, Bonk (2008), is also read by Sandra Burr and available from Brilliance Audio-here discusses the physical challenges astronauts face during space flight, i.e., the zero-gravity realities of disposing of bodily waste, bathing, eating, having sex, and getting sick, along with all of their malodorous consequences. She also tracks NASA engineers' attempts to find solutions to these dilemmas in order to improve astronauts' physical and psychological experiences. Burr narrates in a matter-of-fact tone that well matches Roach's scientific approach. Recommended for adult audiences interested in the curiosities of space flight; not for the queasy. [The New York Times best-selling Norton hc received a starred review, LJ 7/10.-Ed.]-Ilka Gordon, Siegal Coll. of Judaic Studies Lib., Cleveland (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Roach (Stiff) once again proves herself the ideal guide to a parallel universe. Despite all the high-tech science that has resulted in space shuttles and moonwalks, the most crippling hurdles of cosmic travel are our most primordial human qualities: eating, going to the bathroom, having sex and bathing, and not dying in reentry. Readers learn that throwing up in a space helmet could be life-threatening, that Japanese astronaut candidates must fold a thousand origami paper cranes to test perseverance and attention to detail, and that cadavers are gaining popularity over crash dummies when studying landings. Roach's humor and determined curiosity keep the journey lively, and her profiles of former astronauts are especially telling. However, larger questions about the "worth" or potential benefits of space travel remain ostensibly unasked, effectively rendering these wild and well-researched facts to the status of trivia. Previously, Roach engaged in topics everyone could relate to. Unlike having sex or being dead, though, space travel pertains only to a few, leaving the rest of us unsure what it all amounts to. Still, the chance to float in zero gravity, even if only vicariously, can be surprising in what it reveals about us. (Aug.) Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information.

Booklist Review

Roach brings intrepid curiosity, sauciness, and chutzpah to the often staid practice of popular science writing. With the human body as her endlessly intriguing subject, she not only investigates but also participates in strange goings-on behind laboratory doors. Following her wildly popular Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (2008), Roach explores the organic aspects of the space program, such as the dangerous bane of space motion sickness and the challenges of space hygiene (the early capsules stunk to high heaven). Roach happily goes weightless on a parabolic flight on a McDonnell Douglas C-9 in a NASA zero-gravity research project, and test-drives a pressurized rover on a lunar landscape in the High Arctic. She devotes one chapter to space food and another to zero-gravity elimination, which is a serious matter, even with a term like fecal popcorning. An impish and adventurous writer with a gleefully inquisitive mind and a stand-up comic's timing, Roach celebrates human ingenuity (the odder the better), and calls for us to marshal our resources, unchain our imaginations, and start packing for Mars.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

Popular-science writer Roach (Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, 2008, etc.) entertainingly addresses numerous questions about life in outer space.The author is less interested in the thrills and agonies of space travel than "the stuff in betweenthe small comedies and everyday victories." In lucid writing well-tuned to humor and absurdity, Roach tackles such topics as bowel movements in zero gravity. In fact, all the things that can and routinely do go wrong are vileinhaling fecal dust that coats the mouth with E. coli, for instanceand few have taken the act of vomiting quite to the riotous heights as Roach. Plenty of astronauts succumbed to motion sickness in her presence, but it's a problem often ignored by reports because motion sickness is seen as a weakness, and any perceived weakness could get an astronaut bumped from a mission. The author visits with astronauts to hear about what it is like to share a confined space with another person for many days on end"irrational antagonisms" are mentioned, as are fist fights, another little something not mentioned in press briefingsand to look at the cross-cultural issues that arose when Russians, Canadians and Americans shared a space station. Roach is equally adept at demystifying thorny scientific material, such as the nature of gravity and its role in our livesespecially how the lack of it thins bones, atrophies muscles, does odd things with blood vessels and the heart and is particularly uncooperative when it comes to sex: "thrusting just pushes the object of one's affections away." There is much good fun withand a respectful measure of awe atthe often crazy ingenuity brought to the mundane matters of surviving in a place not meant for humans.A delightful, illuminating grab bag of space-flight curiosities.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.