Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void

by Mary Roach

One of the things I love about manned space exploration is that it forces people to unlace certain notions of what is and isn’t acceptable. And possible. It’s amazing what sometimes gets accomplished via an initially jarring but ultimately harmless shift in thinking. Is cutting the organs out of a dead man and stitching them into someone else barbaric and disrespectful, or is it a straightforward operation that saves multiple lives? Does crapping into a Baggie while sitting 6 inches away from your crewmate represent a collapse of human dignity or a unique and comic form of intimacy? The latter, by Jim Lovell’s reckoning. “You get to know each other so well you don’t even bother turning away.” Your wife and kids have seen you on the toilet. So Frank Borman sees you. Who cares? Worth it for the prize at the bottom of the box.

The nobility of the human spirit grows harder for me to believe in. War, zealotry, greed, malls, narcissism. I see a backhanded nobility in excessive, impractical outlays of cash prompted by nothing loftier than a species joining hands and saying “I bet we can do this.” Yes, the money could be better spent on Earth. But would it? Since when has money saved by government red-lining been spent on education and cancer research? It is always squandered. Let’s squander some on Mars. Let’s go out and play.