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 appreciation for the absurd and an impressive capacity for finding it.

This sign says REDUCED GRAVITY OFFICE. I know what is in there, but even so, I have to stand for a moment and indulge my imagination, through which coffee pots are floating and secretaries drift here and there like paper airplanes. Or better still, an organization devoted to the taking of absolutely nothing seriously.

She seems to write with actual glee when reporting on the frequently vomitous results of weightlessness, and her tales of head-case astronauts playing gruesome practical jokes while in orbit had me weeping with laughter.

Yet through all the laughter there is considerable payload to be had in Roach’s books. One can gain here, among other things, an appreciation for just how little was known about the effect of space flight on humans (or chimps) before we followed the Soviets into orbit. There is info on the design of spacecraft seating, and scary details about how the human body reacts to high-G acceleration, and scarier, deceleration, also why it is better to be on rather than below deck when confronting seasickness. Your eyes will widen and you will find yourself saying “really? Who knew?” Apparently Mary Roach did, or at least does now, and shares her acquired knowledge with the rest of us.

If this book does not deter you from your lifelong desire to become an astronaut (an early career fantasy of mine), there is no hope for you at all, and you should seek counseling.

You may not leak bodily products, tears or worse, while reading Packing For Mars but be sure to keep a hankie or some tissues handy, just in case.