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 astronauts! No subject is considered taboo in this book.

The book describes the "potty-cam" at Johnson Space Center. It sits inside a toilet, looking upward, to help train astronauts how to sit on a specially-designed toilet in space. Viewing the real-time video feed, Mary Roach writes that the view is a bit like looking at your home planet for the first time from space.

Mary Roach tries a little too hard to be super-cutesy, resulting in narration that reads more like flirtatious conversation. If you can get beyond the stylistic banalities, you will be well entertained.