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It’s time to put another quirky (and often ridiculous) Mary Roach book to bed so I’ll leave you with a few excerpts sure to make you appreciate the ease of planetary bathroom visits.
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Yes. I’m going there.
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This, not walking on the moon, is what makes astronauts heroes.
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There’s a fact I never knew.
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And I thought my husband spent too much time on the throne. Damn!
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Before humans went to space, there were chimps. And not all of them were lovable.
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With a name like Enos, it was inevitable.
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Naked space travel. Who knew?
And if that’s not enough of a mental image for you, here’s a paragraph about the horrors of elimination while floating above our planet.
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The fact that there are slews of researchers and scientists being paid the big bucks to design high tech Pampers makes me chortle.
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No gravity means no showers. That would be it for me.. sayonara NASA.
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Nope. No way. Not this chick.
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🤣
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Are you ready to be blown away by the physiological changes of space travel?
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Free floating organs is a disturbing enough thought… but I haven’t had a uterus since my hysterectomy in 2015, so what’s my colon kicking back on now?
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No wrinkles, smaller waist and the ability to jettison my bra? Sign me up.
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Veins in the leg muscles normally constrict when we stand, to help keep blood from pooling in our feet. After weeks without gravity, this feature stops bothering to work. Compounding the problem is the fact that the body’s blood volume sensors are in the upper half of the body. Where, without gravity, more of the body’s blood tends to pool; the sensors mis-
interpret this as a surplus of blood, and word goes out to cut back on production. Astronauts in space make do with 10 to 15 percent less blood than they have on Earth. The combination of low blood
volume and lazy veins makes astronauts lightheaded when they return to gravity after a long stay in space. It’s called orthostatic hypotension, and it can be embarrassing. Astronauts have been known to faint during postmission press conferences.
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These are the types of things I never thought about in connection with astronauts. Clearly the human body is not meant to be without gravity.
Another thing I never thought about?
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But now I can’t think of anything else.
🤣
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Until I read this book I never gave much thought to inhaling space vomit, but trust me… NASA has.
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On that happy note much research has gone into vomit training and simulation.
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I’ve never eaten Progresso vegetable soup, and now? I’m quite sure I never will.
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There’s a job for which you will never see me volunteer.
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Since motion sickness is a natural response to a novel or sensorially perplexing motion or gravitational environment, astronauts have to go through it all over again when they return to Earth after a long mission. During the weeks or months of no gravity, their brains have been interpreting all otolith cues as acceleration in one direction or another. So when they move their head, their brain
tells them they’re moving.
Astronaut Peggy Whitson described her first moments on Earth after coming back from 191 days on the International Space Station like this: “I stood up and the world was going around me at 17,500 miles per hour, as opposed to me going around the world at 17,500 miles per hour.” It’s called land-
ing vertigo, or Earth sickness.
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How bizarre is that?
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Avoid turkey vultures at all costs.
Got it!
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Yes, I’ve found another one of those quirky Mary Roach books to share with you. This time… we’re going to space.
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If you missed the last few books I shared, you should know Mary’s research tends to go a little beyond the norm and there will be some colorful as well as uncomfortable subjects discussed in future posts.
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“Early in my research, I came across a moment-
forty minutes into the eighty-eighth hour of Gemini VII-which, for me, sums up the astronaut experience and why it fascinates me. Astronaut Jim Lovell is telling Mission Control about an image he has cap-
tured on film.
“a beautiful shot of a full Moon against the black
sky and the strato formations of the clouds of the earth below.” reads the mission transcript. After a momentary silence, Lovell’s crewmate Frank Borman presses the TALK button.
“Norman’s dumping urine. Urine [in] approximately one minute.”
Two lines further along, we see Lovell saying, “What a sight to behold!” We don’t know what he’s referring to, but there’s a good chance it’s not the moon. According to more than one astronaut memoir, one of the most beautiful sights in space is that of a
sun-illumined flurry of flash-frozen waste-water droplets. Space doesn’t just encompass the sublime and the ridiculous. It erases the line between.”
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Sun struck frozen pee.
And we’re off!
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For all the excitement of preparation and training, I can imagine there would also be a lot of mind numbing down time.
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Butt lubrication is probably not highlighted in the NASA press pamphlet.
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The lunar two step?
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Want to test how astronauts react to stress? No toilet would definitely do it.
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River's world..... 