Packing for Mars
October 4th, 2011Packing for Mars by Mary Roach.
The hilarious and insightful Mary Roach, who previously penned such popular New York Times bestsellers as Stiff, Spook and Bonk, recently turned her attentions to a fascinating topic: space travel. More specifically, Roach’s research delves into the hurdles involved in sending real people into the harsh, prohibitive environment of outer space. Roach also asks, after seeing in all the gritty and grimy detail what a Herculean task it is to explore the Final Frontier, why on Earth do we still want to do it? Packing for Mars, true to the cleverly anti-climactic tone of its title, concerns the mundane but fascinating details of going on a very long vacation.
Image by .sanden. via Flickr
Celestial bodies have always been a source of wonder for humanity. Ancient people had myths, stories, and conjecture as to the relevance and material makeup of those wondrous objects floating in the sky: sun, moon, planets, meteors, comets. However, it wasn’t until the earliest days of the modern scientific movement that humankind first began to recognize the planets were in fact heavenly orbs that, though quite different from Earth, were clearly composed of similar stuff. When Galisteo invented the telescope, the first human eyes saw the crags, valleys, mountains and craters of the moon. It was clear that, at least in theory, humans could lift off from terra firma and transport themselves onto the surface of faraway worlds.
Packing for Mars: What’s the point?
When humans did finally land on the moon, the next goal became Mars. It was doable, even if major problems had to be solved with complex engineering solutions. Indeed, Roach asks, what does it take in actuality to send the hairy, lumbering primate, homo sapiens, hurtling through a vacuum towards the angry red planet, a back-and-forth journey of nearly three years?
While many people naively think going to Mars is little more than providing enough fuel and food for the astronauts to get there and return, the reality is much more complicated. As Mrs. Roach says, the most frustrating thing about space travel is ‘us’. The human being, whose body is subject to all kinds of breakdown, requires more maintenance than any machine, robot, or remote controlled rover. We must eat, produce waste, and have evolved to live in specific environments. Put us in zero gravity or feed us a strange diet and peculiar things start happening.
Roach begins by discussing the kinds of food astronauts must eat. What does zero gravity do to our appetite? How do you make food that is nutritive, of tolerable taste, won’t go bad, and is lightweight? Roach visits testing facilities for these foods – tiny capsules on Earth where subjects eat the same thing, day in and day out for months on end. Endless medical tests are performed on these subjects in order to determine whether their health deteriorates during this tediously uninventive diet. Equally important is that the food be palatable, so the astronaut will not lose his or her desire for it.
Roach also casts her wry wit on those functions of the human body that for the most part can be ignored on Earth, but which become major issues on a space shuttle. Bathing is important, both for hygiene and morale: but did you know NASA had to find a way for astronauts to shower on the space station, because sponge bathing doesn’t satisfy the psychological need for submersion in water? How do you design a toilet for use in zero gravity? What is the best substitute for human fecal matter when testing toilet designs? Human skin sheds cells, which in an enclosed capsule begin to fill the air: how can lung infections be avoided after breathing in these minute particles for days or even weeks? How do you clean vomit and urine out of a space suit? This is just a sampling of the myriad challenges.
A very interesting book – “Packing for Mars”
As Roach points out, a more daunting challenge than preparing our physical bodies for long sojourns in space, are the psychological difficulties. Astronauts who are in space for long stretches are vulnerable to all kinds of mental aberrations. There is a kind of ‘space madness’. The anxiety of floating in lifeless ether far above the comforts of Earth can become a crippling psychosis. Living in extremely close quarters with other people is also very trying; it takes a special personality to bear it. Patience and a sense of humor are more essential than the macho ‘space cowboy’ attitude we often see in films. Living in space is actually rather tedious and boring, with the waking hours mostly comprised of maintaining the craft, recording data and exercising. This is evidenced by one of the most important tests a would-be Japanese astronaut faces in try-outs: he or she must fold a thousand paper cranes without losing their composure, and each one must be done to perfection.
Mary Roach is not content to merely observe and report on the challenges of being an astronaut. In several of her chapters, she sits in as a participant: driving lunar rovers, eating space food, and sailing through the air in zero gravity. This closeness to the process gives her unrivaled insight into the actualities of space travel – at least, to enough degree that she was able to compose such a funny and educational book titled ‘Packing for Mars’.
Finally Roach asks, if it’ s so much trouble, why do institutions like NASA bother with putting humans into space? As Roach explains, borrowing a quote that is thrown around the space exploration community: ‘There are no bucks without Buck Rogers’. That is to say, because space exploration has been almost entirely a publicly funded endeavor, the taxpayers who foot the bill must have a reason to do so. They want to feel like they are taking part in a grand, romantic adventure. And by putting a man or woman deep into the Final Frontier, we can still feel the pull of the dream, the push to see how far human beings can go in exploring the farthest reaches of our enormous world.
S.F. Chronicle’s #1 Bestseller, “Packing for Mars” by Mary Roach should definitely be added on your must-read list.
