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Mar 10, 2011

Kemper rated it:

I’m a big space geek and have spent countless hours reading or watching documentaries about manned space flight. I’ve seen a space shuttle launch and been through the Kennedy Space Center a couple of times. I went and saw the traveling exhibit of Gus Grissom’s capsule that was retrieved from the ocean floor and refurbished. So I thought I knew something about NASA and astronauts.

However, I’d never heard the phrase ’fecal popcorning’ before.

These are the kind of tidbits More...

12 comments like (28 people liked it)

Dec 28, 2011

Petra X rated it:

Note: the dolphin-sex thing appears to be a hoax. Shame that. I like the idea of space sex having to be a threesome.

Why the Space Program Costs so Much. Because its run by a load of backward-thinking dickheads, contrary to what you might think.

Mary Roach seems to have an obsession with poo. I did actually want to know about toilet facilities in space, but not two-chapters worth of knowledge. Similarly a chapter about sex, although no-one apart from one Russian wanker (li More...

17 comments like (30 people liked it)

Jun 09, 2011

Cassy rated it:

There was a rule in my house growing up: no talking about “bodily functions”. When my older sister would start going on about how she clogged the toilet or an episode of smelly burps, my very Southern mother would intervene. “Jill, there will no discussion of bodily functions at this dinner table. Would anyone like more peach cobbler?”

Mary Roach would make an interesting dinner guest at my parents’ house. Her book is overflowing with bodily functions: vomit, body odor, pooping/peein More...

14 comments like (18 people liked it)

Mar 27, 2011

David rated it:

There's a bit of space science in this book, but it's mostly a humorous, immensely scatalogical romp through the space program. By reading this book, you will gain a treasure trove of trivia, ranging from astronaut food, defecation, odors, nausea, to the earliest, non-human astronauts who were shot up into space on rockets. You will learn the real reason why women were not enlisted as astronauts in the early days of NASA, which turns out to be the exact same reason why Russians did include women More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Sep 23, 2010

Trevor rated it:

I’ve read two other Roach books and have really loved them. They tick all of the boxes – they are witty, wise, fascinatingly interesting and written by someone with an eye that unfailingly spots human foibles. The beauty of her writing is that rather than pointing and laughing, she embrace our foibles and makes us fell all the more human because of them.

Do you know that feeling you get when you read someone and think, ‘God, I would really love to meet you, just to listen to you t More...

6 comments like (13 people liked it)

Apr 24, 2011

Will rated it:

Maybe she could have titled the book The Right Stiff.

I needed to have tissues handy while reading Mary Roach’s latest. No, it is not because it made me sad, but because I was laughing so hard my eyes were gushing. Mary Roach has had that effect on me before. I have read two of her books. Stiff and Spook are greatly entertaining. She has a sense of humor that encompasses a pre-adolescent affinity for the scatological. OK, she likes fart jokes. Blast off, Mary.

She has an apprec More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 15, 2011

Richard rated it:

Mary Roach now has a lock on a certain kind of book. Science is her beat, and her shtick is to make it funny — often hilariously funny. But be forewarned: her take on “funny” means she is going to violate any taboo that gets in the way of making you cringe and groan at the same time you laugh.

In her first book, Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, she did the topic as funny-but-creepy, and hadn’t yet glommed on to her now-predictable gross-out brand of humor.

That came i More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Feb 07, 2012

Katie rated it:

Mary Roach is hilarious in everything she writes. She has this amazing ability to boil a particular topic down in such a way that I find myself learning so much more about it than I ever thought I wanted to know, but am laughing so hard, that it's not at all like work. Her author's notes are especially great.

In general, whether she's talking about cadavers or about space travel, I think she relies somewhat on gross-out techniques and the completely absurd. In this case there was More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 23, 2012

Carol rated it:

An exploration of the US space program, and how it's dealt with many of the everyday biological issues we take for granted (washing, eating, urinating). I learned a lot more of the early space program than I expected, but it was very palatable due to Roach's inclusion of either direct interview or historical quotes from astronauts and scientists. I never really thought about the extent to which astronauts sacrifice their personal privacy; she has a hysterical transcript from Mission Control aski More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 03, 2011

Kristin rated it:

Finally finished!

This was a really interesting book! It's kindof a behind-the-scenes, documentary-type book about astonaut life. The insane tests they have to pass to become one, nausea in weighlessness, how to go to the bathroom in space, even a chapter on sex in space- weird. Skip that one and the monkey chapter my sensitive friends.

I was so fascinated by the information. So many things I never thought about! I wondered as a read, what was is about astronauts tha More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 16, 2010

Margaret rated it:

If Mary Roach wrote a book about the science of watching paint dry, I would happily read it. She exhibits a great and infectious joy in learning about her subjects, no matter what they are. Roach's approach is a healthy dose of prurience combined with unabated glee to dig into the heart of the topic. She experienced weightlessness, drank recycled urine, visited the space toilet camera, and many other adventures. The process of research comes out in her sly and clever footnotes and descriptions o More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jan 03, 2011

Christiana rated it:

I keep making jokes about this book and I being in a relationship because I'm weird like that. If this book and I WERE in a relationship, it would be a pretty good one. It teaches me new things, I have insight into people from spending time with it, there was some unexpected surprises. I just really wanted to be in book lust instead, not wined and dined, you know? Like, one day I'll look at this book and realize we're in love, but it's just not happening right this second, so we have to part More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 09, 2011

Rusty rated it:

I chose this book more out of an appreciation of the author than the subject matter. I thought that "Stiff" was almost a five star book for the first 2/3rds. This time around, it felt like Roach was really going out of her way to explore the random and wacky aspects of space travel. Trying a little too hard. Regardless, it's pretty interesting.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 01, 2010

Alyson rated it:

First read = Happy Birthday to me from Goodreads! (And a hardcover happy birthday at that.) Mary Roach is one of my favorites and I have been eagerly awaiting another of her books since devouring the other three last year.

This book will make you realize astronauts are people, too. The most mundane needs must be analyzed by many scientists in order to make a mission successful. Everything from what to eat to how to poop is addressed. After reading about the conditions astronaut More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 11, 2011

Gloriavirtutisumbra rated it:

I'm always listening to an audiobook on the side of all the books I'm attempting to read at any given time, and this week it was Packing for Mars. OH wow. This one is a delight!! I could not stop bursting out in laughter and pounding on tables while listening to the chapter on 'Separation Anxiety' (just read or listen to it and you will be so glad you did). Her humor is a gift to subjects that would be unbearable without it. Please continue to write more honestly and wryly than anyone else, More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 16, 2012

Kira rated it:

If you haven’t read anything by Mary Roach, I’d start with Stiff, simply because I remember that book changing my entire perspective on science writing. But if you’re already a fan, or are simply interested in (and not terrified by) space, Packing for Mars is pretty awesome. As Roach explains, many of today’s technologies—bulletproof vests, artificial limbs, solar panels, invisible braces, Carnation breakfast formula—were born of aerospace innovation. We’ve long been fascinated by what happens More...

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Jan 13, 2012

Zachary rated it:

Mary Roach is the best thing going in science writing at the moment, bar none, and Packing for Mars finds her at the height of her powers. As usual, Roach is more interested in the people who study the science of living in space than the actual history of space exploration, or the science thereof, though she explores all three before the finale. But this proves to be one of the books many strengths, as the author emphasizes the human element to a subject that could seem almost mechanical or remo More...

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Jan 10, 2012

Jason rated it:

The negative thoughts I have about this book stem from its shallowness. You aren't going to learn a great deal, unless you are relatively unaware of space travel or its history, and what you do learn is going to be pretty thin. Compared to a popular writer such as Bill Bryson, Roach is less able to give large swaths of information that is moderately complete and gives one a moderately firm grasp on things.

But this doesn't matter. This is a fun, well-researched, very funny book. It loo More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 23, 2011

Barney rated it:

Mary Roach is, in a word, outstanding. I read Spook over a year ago and found that discussion of ghosts, reincarnation and what not as gut-bustingly funny but oddly touching. Packing For Mars is no different.

This book will not teach you a lot about the history of NASA, but that is not the point. We all see the liftoffs, astronauts on TV, bouncing off of walls and floating around. This book is about the grimy and sometimes shitty underbelly. Roach begins by addressing what at first se More...

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Nov 24, 2011

Brian rated it:

She had me at the photo of the nerd resisting the figure in the space suit as well as the one of the man in the plaid pants demonstrating the placement of a zero-gravity fecal bag. Mary Roach investigates ‘the absurd stuff’—the bizarre gamut of scientific studies that have been conducted to address every conceivable aspect of survival strategies for humans launched into space for journeys of varying durations. She addresses issues of weightlessness, hygiene, eating, urination and defecation, sex More...

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Sep 18, 2011

Eleanor rated it:

I really wanted to love this book. I have been fascinated by space since I was old enough to pick out a "Grover in Space" coloring book in the supermarket checkout line. I adore the movie Apollo 13 so much that I developed a major crush on the Ken Mattingly character played by Gary Sinise. (In what is surely a sign of being in my mid-30s, the crush was triggered by a scene in which, after running some tough, lengthy and exhausting simulations, Mattingly asks to run them one more time t More...

2 comments like

Sep 06, 2011

Terry rated it:

Mary Roach produces books with no obvious narrative and is more a show-and-tell of "look what I found". There is little overriding sense of "go to Mars" and only at the very end does she say "we should do this" with a heart-tugging earnestness that makes me want to reply "for you, sure". The path from beginning to end is fun and extensive footnotes of gaffes and oddities show a very human side to humanity's adventures into the void.

Some Notes: More...

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Aug 27, 2011

John rated it:

This is the only book by Mary Roach I’ve read but that is a personal deficiency I will speedily remedy after devouring "Packing for Mars." How many truly fascinating books have you read about space exploration? I thought so. How many hilarious ones? I thought so, too. Roach’s book is both, but I should warn potential readers that her book is not for everyone. As Roach is profoundly aware, man was not designed to live in space, and most of his needs and functions are incompatible with i More...

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Jul 25, 2011

Fred rated it:

This is a great book on the practical aspects of simulating things you aren't quite ready to try "live." With equal measures of humor, humility and respect, Ms. Roach explores the ways that some of the challenges for humans in space have been simulated by NASA as well as the Russian and Japanese programs. As do all of Ms. Roach's books, this one serves to broaden the reader's awareness of those aspects of scientific work that are not perhaps at the top of the marquee. It is easy to ima More...

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Jul 25, 2011

Margaret added it

Have you ever wondered how NASA and other space agencies thought through the non-glamorous realities of space travel (boredom, vomit, bad smells, space psychosis)? Thankfully, there's someone to track this down and reveal the deep and presumably hideously expensive research from prison experiments (on ""non-optimal long-duration hygiene""), submarine crews (after long deployments, one crew wandered around a park rolling in grass and touching tree bark until spotting a woman More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 08, 2011

Jaime rated it:

I’ve yet to read one of Mary Roach’s books and not find her entertaining. This book was more about the history of space exploration in general than Mars in particular, but it’s important to understand the history before we can jump into a mission that major. I learned a lot that I didn’t know, especially about the sort of "middle ages" of space exploration, between the first moon landing and the Challenger explosion. Sadly, I didn’t know a whole lot about that time period. For instance More...

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Jun 05, 2011

Jinksb rated it:

I want to hang out with Mary Roach. She picks fascinating topics for her books: Corpses. (Stiff) Sex. (Bonk) Ghosts.(Spook) She comes up with the weirdest source material in her research, and she has a wacky sense of humor. Irreverent. Punning. And I think she has as much fun writing her books as her readers do reading them.

Okay, back to "Packing for Mars." Everybody has wondered about certain things in space. (Just not everybody will admit it.) How does the Space Station toi More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 03, 2011

Nikitabanana rated it:

Everyone wanted to be an astronaut growing up. For me it was an ultimate fantasy. My eight year old self was positive that between winning a Pulitzer Prize and inventing a functional jet pack, I would train at NASA and be sent in the United State’s maiden voyage to Mars. However, my crippling scientific illiteracy precluded me from being able to moonwalk on the moon, something I was still a little upset about until I picked up “Packing for Mars” by Mary Roach. Roach has crafted her own quirky ni More...

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May 31, 2011

linda rated it:

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 More...

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May 29, 2011

dtjunkie rated it:

I really enjoyed Roach's look at the science behind sending a person to Mars. I was amazed at how NASA scientists have thought of and conducted studies of things you would have never even thought of. How much flatulence does a food produce? There's a study for that. Pooping in zero gravity? Much harder than you think. What happens when you don't bathe for 2 months? Has the Space Mile High Club chapter been opened? All these questions and more are answered by Roach and I laughed out loud More...

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