Packing for Mars

The Curious Science of Life in the Void

By: Mary Roach

Narrated by: Sandra Burr

Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

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 exploration of what it means to be human. How much can a person give up? How much weirdness can they take? What happens to you when you can’t walk for a year? Have sex? Smell flowers? What happens if you vomit in your helmet during a space walk? Is it possible for the human body to survive a bailout at 17,000 miles per hour?

To answer these questions, space agencies set up all manner of quizzical and startlingly bizarre space simulations. As Mary Roach discovers, it’s possible to preview space without ever leaving Earth. From the space shuttle training toilet to a crash test of NASA’s new space capsule (cadaver filling in for astronaut), Roach takes us on a surreally entertaining trip into the science of life in space and space on Earth.

©2010 Mary Roach (P)2010 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

The narrator killed this book

Great research by the author and a very interesting topic. Too bad the narrator hated the book so much.

Interesting and fun behind-the-scenes stories

Interesting and fun behind-the-scenes stories about human space flight. I am not sure what I expected, but this provided better stories than I thought. However, it is not directly a “challenges to get to mars”, it is the nuts and bolts challenges of all human space flight.

Hilarious story, flat delivery, limited subject matter

Mary Roach is hilarious. Also adventurous and incredibly knowledgeable. Ms Burr wasn’t a great match for the text, though tbh I can’t deliver a joke to save my life. As for the text, I do wish it were clearer (eg from the title) that this strictly covers “human factors,” ignoring other technical and Mars-specific challenges (just sticking the landing would be another novel). Knowing this going in, it’s a great read.

interesting but dense at times

This was a very interesting look at the US space program and how it is dealing or trying to deal with the everyday issues we take for granted, such as eating, washing, and urinating. While I did find this a bit dense at times, I still learned a bunch about the space program, current and past research projects that helped space programs, and things I never considered like food and nutrition. A few areas that this book covers that I never considered before is motion sickness, defecation in space, bone mass loss, and sex.

My only real issue outside of it being a little dense, was that the title is a bit misleading. Roach doesn’t talk specifics about the mission to Mars, the focus of the book is on living in space and past and current space missions and research.

Do not listen to this while you are driving

It could be dangerous because the narration is sooooo boring and robotic you may fall asleep. It's too bad because the content of the book is pretty good, but the narration is just horrible and near impossible to withstand for more than a few minutes at a time.

a tiny bit dry

Every time I see a book about venturing to Mars, I imagine a lecture I was given during my undergrad years at the University of Pennsylvania, in which a chronobiology prof explained why life on Earth would be difficult when the moon moved too far away to support life, what would happen to natural body rhythms on Mars, what it would take to get us there (funding, tech, public opinion, etc), and what efforts were being made to begin colonizing Mars.

This book, while it delivers interesting info, was not what I was looking for. I do have to say that Roach made eating and defecation in space far more interesting than I would have imagined. I also liked the history of space missions. I was slightly bored at times. It was just a bit too dry, even with her usual humorous wit gracing many of the pages.

Not what I had in mind

This book was less about going to Mars and more about the history and challenges that early astronauts and engineers had to deal with in their quest to conquer space travel. The book is filled with problems and solutions that early space exploration had to deal with but not so much specifics about the trip to mars or deep space exploration. It offers a more generalized look at just being in space, specifically what the pioneer astronauts had to cope with.
I was expecting it to include more hypotheticals about space travel and maybe offer some interesting ideas about the future of traveling in space. Maybe it did but it was to generalized focusing on the beginning of going into space. It was interesting but not what I was looking for when I bought the audiobook.

Factual but severely narrow and sometimes unfunny

The author mostly discusses zero-g environments which Mars is not, and even the trip need not be. Most of this Mars-irrelevant discussion is spent diving gleefully into the juvenile questions surrounding "How does one poop/bone in zero-g?" The author's characteristic self-referential jokes mostly fell flat, although some were great.

It's a good book as far as it goes, but that isn't very far.

My Favorite Mary Roach Book

Best Mary Roach book for its research and depth. Sandra Burr does a wonderful job narrating Mary Roach's books!

Book is not about mars

The book should be titled "a history of manned space " because it makes almost no effort to talk about challenges going to mars. The book is an entertaining collection of space stories, but again don't expect much of the mars part.