Life on Mars and Other Space Oddities

 

BookShelf: Life on Mars and Other Space Oddities

“A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?”
By Kelly and Zach Weinersmith
Penguin Press, $32.00

Reviewed by Melody Kemp

This book takes a clever and funny look at the concept of starting life anew somewhere far, far away like Mars, where — as the publisher states — there is no climate change, no war and no Twitter.

Yet are humans really up for the challenge of colonizing another planet?

Those issues and more are explored by bestselling authors Kelly Weinersmith and her husband, Zach Weinersmith.

Kelly holds a Ph.D. in ecology from the University of California, Davis, and is an adjunct faculty member in the BioSciences Department at Rice University. Zach is the cartoonist behind the popular geek webcomic, “Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.”

Together, they explain the science of space travel with a hefty dose of humor.

Is it a far-fetched idea? Consider the fascination with space travel we’re seeing now in billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. Musk, in particular, has stated an interest in having humanity reach the Red Planet and settle it.

Both men stand to add greatly to their fortunes if their aspirations for space travel come true. But is space tourism as ridiculous as it sounds, or is this truly a billionaire’s chic way of building up his or her resume?

Such questions make this book even more timely and appealing.

“A City on Mars” won the prestigious Hugo Award and has received accolades from Scientific American, the Royal Society, The Guardian, The New York Times Book Review and many others.

 

This book is both entertaining

and undoubtedly therapeutic

in times like these, but it is

also incredibly informative.

 

This book is both entertaining and undoubtedly therapeutic in times like these, but it is also incredibly informative.

Readers might squirm at intimate details, but that’s another of the book’s strengths. It does not allow curling lips to dictate content.

So be prepared for the niceties of procreation in space, or more precisely the methods by which to procreate in space and explore in detail how to procreate in zero gravity.

If that is not part of the plan, the authors note, contraceptive pills will degrade under the levels of radiation found in space.

The six-woman, all-female crew that included pop star Katy Perry on a Blue Origin New Shepard rocket grabbed headlines during an 11-minute flight into space on April 14.

With or without designer costumes, that mission was portrayed as a real feat, even though the crew never got more than 62 miles above Earth.

 

The Weinersmiths encourage us

to look far beyond the glamour

of near-Earth space travel.

 

But the Weinersmiths encourage us to look far beyond the glamour of near-Earth space travel and consider the uncomfortable situations that space pioneers such as astronaut Alan Shepard experienced in his Mercury capsule.

During his famous May 5, 1961, flight, according to Smithsonian magazine, Shepard traveled into space with several sensors attached to his body, including one in his rectum for monitoring his body temperature.

The authors point out that any nation that wants to declare itself as the strongest and the best need not go to such trouble.

They just have to announce that to the United Nations. Talk is cheap. Space programs are not.

The authors look at trends toward colonization of Mars, and the moon in particular.

With stunning attention to detail, they spell out possible physiological outcomes.

“That’s not to say that going into space is dull. No doubt it’s a meaningful, transcendent experience. But other transcendent experiences are available too; generally at a lower fee,” they wrote.

So family planning may require tougher stuff, such as a plastic chastity belt-style device devised by NASA. The authors suggest that means NASA knows little about female anatomy.

They also revisit astronauts’ experiences of urinating in space, noting that zero gravity does render space travel a bit, um, misty.

Their complicated devices were eventually replaced by a MAG, or maximum absorbency garment. Padded knickers, in actuality.

 

Food supply, of course, is

a complicating factor, as is

lack of water, lousy soils

and compromised gravity.

 

Food supply, of course, is a complicating factor, as is lack of water, lousy soils and compromised gravity. They render farming a challenge, so food might have to be expensively airlifted.

At nearly 400 pages, this is a long book. It’s too long for me to review in its entirety before my keyboard goes into spasm.

But I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Just be prepared for some candid, well-researched observations and squirming hilarity.

Melody Kemp is a BookShelf contributing editor. She is an Australian-based freelance writer who has lived in and written extensively about Asia, as well. Her previous review for SEJournal was of Paul Hardisty’s “In Hot Water: Inside the Battle to Save the Great Barrier Reef.”

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* From the weekly news magazine SEJournal Online, Vol. 10, No. 21. Content from each new issue of SEJournal Online is available to the public via the SEJournal Online main page. Subscribe to the e-newsletter here. And see past issues of the SEJournal archived here.