Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion

This is a Buddy read for Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach starting on September 9, 2024.


Happy Reading!

Thank you!

Read this yesterday and *almost* made it in time for my book club. Walked in with still 30 minutes left. We had a good discussion--turns out some of the ladies in our group have met Buzz Aldrin or had to get Top Secret clearance to be able to work in the same airfield as astronauts, and they had some fun stories and pictures.

There were some solid Mary Roach fans and some who thought the book was interesting in parts but lacked focus and the tangents were hard to follow (and a bit too gross). I fell somewhere in the middle--I think I found the information more interesting than others, but did feel like the book was rather stream-of-consciousness and didn't really keep the focus on "Packing for Mars"--which I would have preferred.

I also feel like the deep-dives that Roach chose to focus on really showed her interests--really, there were Stiffs, Fuzzy animal testing, and lots of Bonking, a lot on Gulping--or throwing up and pooping, two ends of digestive expulsion--and even some Grunt science. I would almost think this could be the cut scenes from those books, sorted by space collection.

My favorite part was probably the first chunk, when Roach delved into (view spoiler)[JAXA and the differences between Japanese astronaut testing and American. My favorite anime is 宇宙兄弟 1 Uchuu Kyoudai 1 and it is all about the same thing--or rather, two brothers who both want to be astronauts, and has a whole sequence where one brother is applying to the JAXA ASCAN program. So a lot of what Roach mentioned I was already somewhat familiar with, and it was nice to get more details on a subject I was already enthusiastic about. Not to mention thinking things like "Hah, they only folded 14 cranes? I'd have done a hundred in that same time period, and every one would be pristine!"

On the other side though, I found parts of the book kind of depressing--I wouldn't say I'm a space nerd (my level of expertise doesn't qualify) but definitely a space enthusiast. I've always thought I'd be a happy volunteer for a Mars program if they ever got around to asking for general population volunteers. But the descriptions of what the programs were looking for made it clear I would have never made it past the gate. From the very opening interview, where they said any leg-jigging or lack of eye contact was an instant disqualifier--well, I guess that is disqualifying everyone even mildly on the Autistic spectrum. I can control it if I know about it ahead of time, but it takes an effort. I could totally do a long distance in confined quarters with repetitive tasks though! And I tend to get along easily with people... But there goes the fantasy. Maybe I just need to marry a gazillionaire to take me into space. (hide spoiler)]

I’ll be in here once I finish Jacka.