The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut Universe, #1)

by Mary Robinette Kowal

To put this into perspective … The Sirius has 5,600,000 parts and close to a million systems, subsystems, and assemblies. Even if everything was 99.9 percent reliable, that would still be 5,600 defects. It wasn’t a question of if something would go wrong on the way to the moon, it was a question of when and what.

There is something about having your legs over your head that makes you need to pee. This makes it into none of the press releases, but every single astronaut talks about it. The men have complicated condoms and catch pouches. I have a diaper.