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

Roach provides a useful timeline at the end of Packing for Mars that marks several key events in the history of space exploration. Her timeline starts with the 1949 Albert II flight, which sent the first mammal to space, and ends on February 1, 2003, with the Columbia space shuttle disaster. Before humans entered space, the US sent monkeys and apes, and the USSR dogs, to test the likelihood of sub-orbital and orbital survival. The Cold War found expression in the Space Race, the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. Beginning in the mid-1950s, the two countries raced to send satellites into space, men to the moon, and space stations into orbit. The USSR sent the first human, Yuri Gagarin, to orbit Earth in 1961. John Glenn and Alan Shepherd became the first Americans in suborbital and orbital space in 1961 and 1962, respectively.

Roach’s book details several eras of NASA’s space program: Six Mercury missions (1961-1963) focused on sending solo astronauts in space, 10 Gemini missions (1964-1966) sent two-man crews to navigate docking and spacewalking, and 14 Apollo missions (1961-1972) focused on the moon. Apollo 11 landed the first men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, on the moon in 1969.

The Space Station/Space Shuttle programs (1973-2015) followed the Apollo missions, sending astronauts in reusable shuttles to construct the International Space Station and conduct research and service missions. After these came the Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS), which aimed to make trans-lunar missions to an asteroid or Mars. NASA has continued this effort via the Mars Exploration Program, which began in 1993 and has landed rovers on the surface of Mars. In addition, NASA has partnered with commercial space companies like Space X and Blue Origin, which also have plans for Mars, and Virgin Galactic, which focuses on suborbital flights for travelers and tourists.

Rather than retell the story of these well-known and highly celebrated achievements, Roach’s book offers a different perspective from that of other histories of space travel: Included in her timeline are “small comedies and everyday victories” (18), such as when an astronaut smuggled a corned beef sandwich onto a Gemini flight, and when two men on the Gemini VII mission spent two weeks in space without bathing. Though the book’s title is Packing for Mars, Roach does not direct attention to the Red Planet until the final chapter. Mars is the next frontier for human space travel, and Roach anticipates the project will yield just as many wonders as absurdities.