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Packing for Mars
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Packing for Mars (2010) (edit title/settings)

The Curious Science of Life in the Void

by Mary Roach (Author) (edit contributors)

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The best-selling author of Stiff and Bonk explores the irresistibly strange universe of space travel and life without gravity. Space is a world devoid of the things we need to live and thrive: air, gravity, hot showers, fresh produce, privacy, beer. Space exploration is in some ways an... read more

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  • “People can't anticipate how much they'll miss the natural world until they are deprived of it. I have read about submarine crewmen who haunt the sonar room, listening to whale songs and colonies of snapping shrimp. Submarine captains dispense "periscope liberty"--a chance to gaze at clouds and birds and coastlines and remind themselves that the natural world still exists. I once met a man who told me that after landing in Christchurch, New Zealand, after a winter at the South Pole research station, he and his companions spent a couple days just wandering around staring in awe at flowers and trees. At one point, one of them spotted a woman pushing a stroller. "A baby!" he shouted, and they all rushed across the street to see. The woman turned the stroller and ran.”
    Mary Roach
  • “Only in space do you understand what incredible happiness it is just to walk. To walk on Earth.”
    Laveikin
  • “You may be wondering: Could Ella Fitzgerald explode your liver?”
    Mary Roach
  • “Benjamin Franklin. Upon the occasion of history’s first manned flights—in the 1780s, aboard the Montgolfier brothers’ hot-air balloons—someone asked Franklin what use he saw in such frivolity. “What use,” he replied, “is a newborn baby?””
  • “Space doesn’t just encompass the sublime and the ridiculous. It erases the line between.”
  • “The “zero gravity” that astronauts experience aboard an orbiting spacecraft is simply a continuous state of falling around the Earth.”
  • “There is no such thing as a real weight, only real mass. Weight is determined by gravity.”
  • “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.”
  • “gravity is the universe's version of lust”
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • Benjamin Franklin. Upon the occasion of history’s first manned flights—in the 1780s, aboard the Montgolfier brothers’ hot-air balloons—someone asked Franklin what use he saw in such frivolity. “What use,” he replied, “is a newborn baby?”
    Highlighted by 134 Kindle customers
  • “Apollo 8 has 5,600,000 parts…. Even if all functioned with 99.9 percent reliability, we could expect 5,600 defects.”
    Highlighted by 107 Kindle customers
  • “Personal hygiene as practiced in the U.S. today is largely a cultural fetish, actively promoted by those with commercial interests.”
    Highlighted by 104 Kindle customers
  • If you read just one astronaut memoir in your life, make it Mullane’s.
    Highlighted by 98 Kindle customers
  • Space doesn’t just encompass the sublime and the ridiculous. It erases the line between.
    Highlighted by 93 Kindle customers
  • There is no such thing as a real weight, only real mass. Weight is determined by gravity.
    Highlighted by 92 Kindle customers
  • The “zero gravity” that astronauts experience aboard an orbiting spacecraft is simply a continuous state of falling around the Earth.
    Highlighted by 91 Kindle customers
  • 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.
    Highlighted by 88 Kindle customers
  • Astronauts are as much as 2.5 inches taller after about a week in space. (The typical gain is 3 percent of one’s height.) Like children, they will “outgrow” their suits if a “growth” spurt has not been factored in.
    Highlighted by 76 Kindle customers
  • Wernher von Braun is said to have commented on the moon landing, “If we’d been more people, we’d have failed.”
    Highlighted by 75 Kindle customers
Show all 19 quotes from this book

Organizations edit see section history

  • NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration

First Sentence edit see section history

To the rocket scientist, you are a problem.

Table of Contents edit see section history

Countdown

1. HE'S SMART BUT HIS BIRDS ARE SLOPPY
Japan Picks an Astronaut

2. LIFE IN A BOX
The Perilous Psychology of Isolation and Confinement

3. STAR CRAZY
Can Space Blow Your Mind?

4. YOU GO FIRST
The Alarming Prospect of Life Without Gravity

5. UNSTOWED
Escaping Gravity on Board NASA's C-9

6. THROWING UP AND DOWN
The Astronaut's Secret Misery

7. THE CADAVER IN THE SPACE CAPSULE
NASA Visits the Crash Test Lab

8. ONE FURRY STEP FOR MANKIND
The Strange Careers of Ham and Enos

9. NEXT GAS: 200.000 MILES
Planning a Moon Expedition Is Tough, but Not as Tough as Planning a Simulated One

10. HOUSTON, WE HAVE A FUNGUS
Space Hygiene and the Men Who Stopped Bathing for Science

11. THE HORIZONTAL STUFF
What If You Never Got Out of Bed?

12. THE THREE-DOLPHIN CLUB
Mating Without Gravity

13. WITHERING HEIGHTS
Bailing Out from Space

14. SEPARATION ANXIETY
The Continuing Saga of Zero-Gravity Elimination

15. DISCOMFORT FOOD
When Veterinarians Make Dinner, and Other Tales of Woe from Aerospace Test Kitchens

16. EATING YOUR PANTS
Is Mars Worth It?

Acknowledgments
Time Line
Bibliography

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Mary Roach (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Country: Add the country of publication.
Publication Date: 2010
ISBN: 0393068471
Page Count: 334

Classification edit see section history

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Reading Level: Young Adults

Some off-color humor that is not appropriate for younger readers.

More Books Like This edit see section history

   
  • How to Live on Mars

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