Posts Tagged ‘astronauts’
Packing for Mars, by Mary Roach
Posted on: March 5, 2012
Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, by Mary Roach
published in 2010
Where I got it: the library
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Beyond the obvious, food, water, energy, what would we need for a trip to Mars? The aeronautical engineers have already done all the math for us, they know to within a miligram exactly how much food and water can get sent up in a rocket needing how much fuel. But what about everything else?
What about everything we take for granted down on Earth, that suddenly become much more difficult when there is little to no gravity? What kind of clothes would you wear? how would you take a shower? Can you eat a sandwich? Enjoy the smell of vanilla flavored cookies? What goes in must go out, so how would you go to the bathroom in zero gravity? Even worse, what if free fall makes you sick to your stomach?
Leave to to Mary Roach to find the truth, the deepest darkest details of what we need for space. From parabololic flights on NASA’s specially outfitted military plane (known coloquially as the vomit comet) to speaking with Russian cosmonauts, polar scientists, veterenary food specialists and marine biologists, Roach finds that everything that could possibly go up in a rocket or shuttle must be tested, tested, and tested some more by folks willing to sleep for weeks or experience high end G-forces.
the Little Red Reviewer 
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