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

Mary Roach’s perspective on humans and space travel is different from that of a rocket scientist. For the scientist, humans are unpredictable, emotional, and vulnerable—the troublesome antithesis to the clockwork reliability of machines. In contrast, for Roach, these human limitations make space travel endeavors more fascinating.

Roach juxtaposes NASA’s ingenuity with the comedy of space travel’s lesser-known and often more mundane tasks. For instance, when NASA was preparing to plant a flag on the moon, teams held committees, practiced assembly drills, and retrofitted mounts to make the flag appear horizontal in the vacuum of space. For Roach, a detail from the Gemini VII mission is representative of space travel’s absurdities and an inspiration for her research: In the mission transcript, astronaut Jim Lovell declared something to be a beautiful sight, but did not clarify whether he was referring to the view of the moon or to the recent disposal of urine from their waste management system glistening in the sky.

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) conducted various experiments to select their astronaut corps. JAXA candidates lived in an isolation chamber with other finalists for one week while scientists assessed their psychological wellness as potential astronauts.