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

This is my third Mary Roach book, after Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, and Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. She writes about some interesting perspectives on science, especially about the personalities of the researchers, now choosing the topic of space travel. She gives her version of the history of the space program and the personalities involved, and her anecdotes are worth reading. Did you know about Rusty Schweickart who flew in Apollo 9 to specifically test the life-support backpack that the Apollo 11 crew would make in August 1969 when Armstrong landed on the moon, was so nauseated and vomited so much that the astronauts thought about just faking the experiments and tell Mission Control that it worked? They didn’t fake it, and after his return, Schweickart then embarked on extensive earthborn studies on nausea that benefited all subsequent space travelers, but he was never allowed back in space. She gave a most interesting account of the decision of what to do with a body if someone died during a spacewalk. The decision, just “cut him loose.” She writes, “All agreed: An attempt to recover the body could endanger other crew members’ lives. On a person who has experienced firsthand the not insignificant struggle of entering a space capsule in a pressured suit could so unequivocally utter those words.” The discussion of how they got to that decision was great. “In orbit, everything gets turned on its head. Shooting stars streak past below you, and the sun rises in the middle of the night.” She talked about the publicity that the monkeys, Ham and Enos, got before Shephard and Glenn went into space, and the fact that the humans were jealous of them. Ham got more publicity than “Enos the Penis” became Ham was a ham, and Enos was a dick. Glen “told a congressional audience about the humbling experience of having been asked by President Kennedy’s young daughter Caroline, while her father stood by, ‘Where’s the monkey?’” She wrote about the studies on human elimination, as in pooping and peeing – problems that I had not considered before. There are a number of stories about sex in space, but that material was minimal and not graphic enough. Mary Roach is clever, but despite the fact that the book is short, I found myself skimming, a lot. Although what she chronicles was important to the development of space flight, and while there were some great tidbits, I fairly quickly got to the point that enough was enough.

Bonk The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach

I previously wrote about Mary Roach’s first book, Stiff, the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. Her second book, Bonk, the Curious Couple of Science and Sex is much better. Perhaps that’s because I’d rather read about sex than dead bodies, and if that’s the case so be it. She was less digressive in this book as she reviews the work of Masters and Johnson, Kinsey, etc., but what is better than reading those peoples’ original work is that she is interested in who they are as humans. She is very clever in her approach, and is quite open about when she submits herself as a subject to some research efforts. She even gets her husband to go along with having sex while they are having an ultrasound. He should probably be a member of this club. I thought one of her more clever lines had to do with the term, “I’m dating myself,” which we use when referring to an old song, or some other more distant event. She now understands the term as a euphemism for masturbation. As a psychiatrist, I love that.

WC Don

Stiff, The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

Mary Roach wrote “Stiff, The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.” It is a nonfiction work about the history of the use of cadavers, mostly in medicine, but also in such things as tests for car accidents and the like. So, she goes into grave robbing and the other stuff that used to happen. She has a lot of clever lines and often offers a unique spin on life and bodies. She also gives herself free license to digress at length into irrelevant stuff. She obviously did a lot of research, and the book had the feel of someone who did not know how to edit out the wrong material, or the feel of someone who needed to keep too much so the book would be long enough. I was talking with a retired doctor I met from Florida who recommended Summer Wind by Ruhl (a woman), a book about the solving of real cold crimes. He said his book was great, and then he asked why the hell would I want to read this one. So, I guess it isn’t necessarily a doctor-thing. I did end up skimming through a lot of the material I found interesting. Whether you pick this one up will depend on your mood and interest at the moment. I have another of her books with me, “Bonk, The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex.” I’ll let you know when I get to if. I think I will look for Summer Wind when I get home.

WC Don