Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Hey guys, I'm welcome to stuff from
Speaker 1: the Science Lab. This is Alice Madamel, the science editor
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb,
Speaker 1: science writer at how stuff works dot com. And uh,
Speaker 1: and here at Stuff in the Science Lab. We're big
Speaker 1: fans of Mary Roach, who if you're not familiar with
Speaker 1: her work, she's a science writer and she's written the
Speaker 1: book Stiff, Spook, Bunk, and now Packing for Mars, The
Speaker 1: Curious Science of Life in the Void. Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: was released as the summer Yeah. Her her three previous
Speaker 1: books are all great. Uh. Stiff deals with the story
Speaker 1: of human cadavers. Interestingly, when we interviewed her, she was
Speaker 1: saying that she didn't think that book would sell. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: she well, she's been surprised at at how some of
Speaker 1: her follow up books didn't like instantly surpassed that one,
Speaker 1: because you know, cadaver's Okay. Then the second one, Spook,
Speaker 1: was about um science and the supernatural, which is also
Speaker 1: a really great book. I read that one. And then
Speaker 1: the third one was about sex balk and uh, and
Speaker 1: she she was sure that one was going to be
Speaker 1: the big you know, the one that's gonna be even
Speaker 1: more of a hit. But but Stiff is remaining like
Speaker 1: the colossal best seller of the of her work so far.
Speaker 1: And they're all they're all great. Yeah, yeah, we highly
Speaker 1: advocate reading them. Um. So we did have the chance
Speaker 1: to interview her, and uh, we're gonna share some of
Speaker 1: that interview with you guys today. So I thought one
Speaker 1: of the things that she did really well is just
Speaker 1: kind of breaking down the mythology of the astronaut and
Speaker 1: making astronauts into just regular old humans. Here she is
Speaker 1: talking about the first astronaut she met. I remember, um,
Speaker 1: my first astronaut. You know, I was down at Johnson
Speaker 1: Space Center and I had never I've never met an
Speaker 1: astronaut and it was the skuy Lee Moore and he's
Speaker 1: just this this regular guys wearing kind of a yeah
Speaker 1: Hawaiian shirt and cheenose and brown shoes. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm going to meet an astroid and I meet this
Speaker 1: kind of like oh my god, they're just people for starters,
Speaker 1: you know, so the whole like mythology, Uh this doesn't
Speaker 1: you know. You meet you meet them and right away
Speaker 1: you realize they're just they're just people. And then you
Speaker 1: start to learn about what they go through all the
Speaker 1: things that you were saying, plus some of the you know,
Speaker 1: kind of worrisome physiological changes, and it's yeah, very quickly
Speaker 1: ceases to be this high glamour job. Yeah. And then
Speaker 1: you asked her if there was one particular example of
Speaker 1: a space absurdity that really just made her side. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is my next book. This is what I'm going
Speaker 1: to explore next. I think that there was that paper
Speaker 1: I came across fairly early on, when I was pretty
Speaker 1: sure I was going to do it, but not entirely sure.
Speaker 1: It came across this paper from n on Space Nutrition
Speaker 1: and Related waste problems, and it was these guys sort
Speaker 1: of thinking outside box about Mars, and they were, you know,
Speaker 1: because you're it's two to three your mission and food
Speaker 1: is you can't pack lots of delicious food and you know,
Speaker 1: launch it for a crew of six or three years.
Speaker 1: So they were thinking like, well, we could we could
Speaker 1: create clothing out of edible keratin fibers that they could
Speaker 1: wear for a while and then when they were done
Speaker 1: wearing it, they could eat it. And then there was
Speaker 1: the guy who was saying that, um, uh well, they
Speaker 1: could um actually be eating pieces of the spacecraft. We
Speaker 1: could you make these edible proteins for some of the
Speaker 1: interiors of that we won't be neating after we've been
Speaker 1: on the surface of Mars when we were coming home.
Speaker 1: We'll just eat that, eat that module. And you know,
Speaker 1: just this sort of plus the you know, the the
Speaker 1: very very extreme recycling that would have to be done
Speaker 1: in terms of, um, drinking your own sweat and urine.
Speaker 1: Uh that I think at that point I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this Narry roach country. So of course we
Speaker 1: had to ask her if she was a space geet
Speaker 1: going in to writing the book or if she became
Speaker 1: one in the process, And it turns out she was
Speaker 1: a little bit of one beforehand, but uh but in
Speaker 1: writing the book, she found herself like watching NASA TV
Speaker 1: all the time. So so here's what she had to
Speaker 1: say about that. I was a space a little bit
Speaker 1: of a space geek. I never watched Star Trek and
Speaker 1: I wasn't a science fiction reader. But I did a
Speaker 1: story at this for Discover magazine years ago where I
Speaker 1: went to the neutral Buoyancy tank, which is that just
Speaker 1: it's like the size of the Gulf of Mexico. It's
Speaker 1: not it's heat, but it's this huge swimming pool that
Speaker 1: they submerged pieces of the International Space Station and then
Speaker 1: have the astronauts rehearse really addressed rehearsal, wearing their actual suits,
Speaker 1: um rehearse all the moves that they're going to do.
Speaker 1: And I remember just being kind of overwhelmed by the
Speaker 1: delightful geekiness of it all. And you know, and I
Speaker 1: am kind of a geek, so um NASA was kind
Speaker 1: of the magical kingdom in a way. I was like, all,
Speaker 1: get all this stuff, you know, just there's just all
Speaker 1: manner of things you never would imagine existing are down there.
Speaker 1: We were talking about how the public's perception and enthusiasm
Speaker 1: for space exploration has kind of waxed and waned over
Speaker 1: the years. You even mentioned to say that it might
Speaker 1: be a little boring now. Definitely been boring for for
Speaker 1: a while there, because they started out really exciting with
Speaker 1: space exploration. You know, these people are going out in
Speaker 1: the space, they're getting stuff down their cowboys, you know,
Speaker 1: and then there was this long period of kind of
Speaker 1: to most people, I think, kind of boring science experiments
Speaker 1: in space so yeah, we had to ask Mary where
Speaker 1: where where she thought we are now and where we're going? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and how we could turn things around fair space exploration.
Speaker 1: I think we're at a point where we could turn
Speaker 1: it around and make it not boring by going somewhere new,
Speaker 1: you know. I think that the the Moon base UM plan,
Speaker 1: the plan to go back and people for six months
Speaker 1: or more to live on the moon. UM. I think
Speaker 1: just because it's the Moon and people feel the general
Speaker 1: public feels like, well, we've we've been there, we went
Speaker 1: there seven times, um, why why are we going back?
Speaker 1: I think that um to just simply to go somewhere new.
Speaker 1: If not, if they you know, the partisan bickering and
Speaker 1: the policy and the politics can sort of if they
Speaker 1: can sort out where they where we're gonna what we're
Speaker 1: gonna do, where we're gonna go, and I think you
Speaker 1: you really and it's somewhere new, you really could start
Speaker 1: to capture people's imaginations again. Uh, it wouldn't doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be Mars, I mean near with that story, just
Speaker 1: something that is um different and exciting for people. I
Speaker 1: think it's still even when we were in orbit, um
Speaker 1: a lot of really really interesting cool stuff was going on.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't always get reported that way or reported
Speaker 1: at all. So we we also asked her how astronauts
Speaker 1: have changed, or rather the role of the astronaut has
Speaker 1: changed again from the cowboys of the rights off to
Speaker 1: the more you know, the more the scientist astronaut we
Speaker 1: have today. Um, so she talked a little about about that,
Speaker 1: about the class between the old school and the new
Speaker 1: school scientist. They couldn't be more different. It really was
Speaker 1: eighty degree turn on on on what makes the perfect
Speaker 1: astronaut because you got the you know, early on one guy,
Speaker 1: so it didn't matter if he didn't play well with others.
Speaker 1: You have one guy in an a mission that's a
Speaker 1: few hours long, and so what you want is somebody
Speaker 1: who's aggressive, brave, unfazed by high risk, uh able to
Speaker 1: deal with an emergency, calm and an emergency. That that
Speaker 1: sort of the right stuff, which became very much the
Speaker 1: wrong stuff by the time we get to the Shuttle
Speaker 1: era where you've got or the I S S even
Speaker 1: more to the point where you've got six months and
Speaker 1: longer missions and five six people, then you really don't
Speaker 1: you don't want that kind of personality. You would want
Speaker 1: somebody's you know, the list of attributes I love some
Speaker 1: of them, like ability to form stable and quality interpersonal
Speaker 1: relationship because they've liked John Glenn. Can you imagine area
Speaker 1: that being even the word relationships entering into it, you know, flexibility, fairness, empathy,
Speaker 1: all these things that you don't you don't really associate
Speaker 1: with the right stuff. But then going going into the future,
Speaker 1: if we do go to Mars, then you then you
Speaker 1: kind of want both of those because it's going to
Speaker 1: be a bigger crew, so you want people who get
Speaker 1: along well in the group. But then again you also
Speaker 1: needs a self starter and somebody who can deal with
Speaker 1: emergencies with sort of leadership and calm, you know that
Speaker 1: that whole right stuff things. So I don't know how
Speaker 1: they're going to find up these people. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: kind of a super human combination. People are usually one
Speaker 1: or the other. Speaking of the perfect astronaut, we went
Speaker 1: through this crazy list of physiological traits um that some
Speaker 1: space agencies think are important for astronauts to have. And
Speaker 1: it was because it was a funny exchange. So here's
Speaker 1: this chatting about how that astronaut might turn out if
Speaker 1: all the various random traits were taken into account. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's all these you could get well, and they're they're
Speaker 1: talking about you. She look for people whose intestinal flora
Speaker 1: did not produce methane because that's explosive. So you gotta
Speaker 1: look at what kind of what their farts contain, you
Speaker 1: know what, somebody who's snores, because that wakes everybody up.
Speaker 1: You don't want something with bad breath. That's the Chinese
Speaker 1: Space Agency. Also African American women, Uh well, we're after
Speaker 1: women in general because they consume less oxygen than food.
Speaker 1: African Americans sticker bone density so uk. So you want
Speaker 1: a deaf, mute African American woman who does not snore
Speaker 1: and doesn't produce methane. And then on top of that
Speaker 1: the right personality. Of course, as you know, science writers
Speaker 1: and science hitters. We had to ask her about her
Speaker 1: her method uh in writing this book and really kind
Speaker 1: of writing all of them. And what's amazing about her
Speaker 1: writing is that she's not just summarizing journal findings or
Speaker 1: you know, kind of twisting the research into a new
Speaker 1: light or even um, I mean, she is very much
Speaker 1: translating it into layman's terms, much as we hope to do.
Speaker 1: But she's getting to people in the flesh, she's talking
Speaker 1: to them, she's making them come alive on the page.
Speaker 1: And also Mary Roach is very much a character in
Speaker 1: her own books. You know, it's like you're really right
Speaker 1: there with Mary in each of these as she goes
Speaker 1: out and talks to these people, you know, and uh
Speaker 1: and really learns, so you know what the dirt is
Speaker 1: on everything from corpses to going into space. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: here she is talking a little bit about storytelling and
Speaker 1: her method of putting together books and why science isn't boring.
Speaker 1: I mean, when I contact people frequently, they say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I'll send you a paper and we can talk, and
Speaker 1: I'm always having to write back and say, now, it
Speaker 1: doesn't really work very well for readers that way. I
Speaker 1: need to actually come visit you and be there and
Speaker 1: see what you're doing and have a scene with people
Speaker 1: who are talking to each other and doing things. And
Speaker 1: even that, isn't that a traditional book narrative? Usually that's
Speaker 1: a through line all the way through the book, and
Speaker 1: that is Yeah, that's another way to do it, and
Speaker 1: probably the best way. But even just having a chapter
Speaker 1: by chapter a setting in a narrative framework to hang
Speaker 1: the facts on helps a lot and getting people interested
Speaker 1: in science because people have this notion that science is boring,
Speaker 1: which kind of blows my mind, because science is scientists,
Speaker 1: it's you. You know, it's your your audience, your backyard,
Speaker 1: it's your dog, it's the weather, it is it is everything,
Speaker 1: And how how could you possibly think it's boring? But
Speaker 1: you know, it's often along scientists because they're at such
Speaker 1: a high level of understanding it. It is boring to
Speaker 1: the general public to pick up a paper from a journal.
Speaker 1: So you do have to as a science writer, which
Speaker 1: is a title like I guess I were, But um,
Speaker 1: you do have to find ways to make it accessible
Speaker 1: and make it real and storytelling is I think the
Speaker 1: best way. You know, she really got some amazing details
Speaker 1: and stuff that we never hear about, at least not
Speaker 1: regularly and and not certainly not stuff that NASA broadcasts. Um,
Speaker 1: pretty much the messy realities of motion, sickness and going
Speaker 1: to the bathroom in space and all sorts of good
Speaker 1: stuff like that. So I was asking her if astronauts
Speaker 1: were relieved to finally lift the curtain on the reality
Speaker 1: of life and space and sometimes smelly reality of life
Speaker 1: and space well, the cosmonauts in general are just very straightforward,
Speaker 1: just just lay it on the line kind of people.
Speaker 1: There's less concern I think about what is the proper
Speaker 1: thing to say? Maybe, so just culturally, they're a little
Speaker 1: more free wheeling in their conversations. And in fact, I
Speaker 1: was surprised by if you sit down and have a
Speaker 1: conversation with an astronaut, even an active astronaut, not retired,
Speaker 1: it's always easier when somebody's retired, but any and you
Speaker 1: talk about a range of topics, uh not just you know,
Speaker 1: sex and poop. If you if you're having an interesting
Speaker 1: conversation about larger issues of space exploration and challenges, and
Speaker 1: you eventually make your way around to something like that,
Speaker 1: that's fine. I think what bothers them is when you
Speaker 1: specifically would request, if you were to request an interview
Speaker 1: specifically about um, sex and space, because that, I think
Speaker 1: to them kind of it's kind of consulting in a
Speaker 1: way like that, that that that that this is the
Speaker 1: most interesting thing that the public can find, you know,
Speaker 1: when they do what they do, a lot of the
Speaker 1: research that they do, and it's it is interesting in
Speaker 1: its own right, and so I think it's frustrating when
Speaker 1: people only ask about those things. So if you, if you,
Speaker 1: if you bring it up in a in a larger context,
Speaker 1: they're fine talking about it and along those lines. Because
Speaker 1: again there's this whole chapter just on going to the
Speaker 1: bathroom instead. Yeah, it's it's it's you know, if you
Speaker 1: only read one chapter in this book, you know, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like it's the one to read. Um. And
Speaker 1: and I have to you know, I have to say
Speaker 1: I thought I knew a lot about going to the
Speaker 1: bathroom and space going in because we even did that
Speaker 1: whole part. We did a podcast on it, I've written
Speaker 1: about it, and but now Mary had some stuff that
Speaker 1: I was not prepared for. Hcapees. Yeah, I was watching
Speaker 1: a John Stewart clip. She was on a John Stewart
Speaker 1: and they had everywhere. Yeah, she's really been doing a
Speaker 1: lot of pr for us. She was talking about escapees.
Speaker 1: So I had to ask her which she thought was grosser.
Speaker 1: Um a phenomenon called fecal popcorning. Oh that's still against
Speaker 1: me every time, or the the fecal glove. So here,
Speaker 1: here we go. Here's what she had to say about that.
Speaker 1: I think if you're a dog owner, probably not that
Speaker 1: big a deal, because it's really like, you know, those
Speaker 1: people go walk down the street with a New York
Speaker 1: Times sleeve plastic newspaper, sleep and pick up their dog poop,
Speaker 1: turned it inside out. Done, No big deal. So I
Speaker 1: would imagine somebody was used to that, wouldn't. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is your own material, which is a little unusual.
Speaker 1: But uh, I think that the the issue with the
Speaker 1: shuttle toilet with with escape ease as they called it,
Speaker 1: with little pieces um escaping and making their way around
Speaker 1: um the capsule or the module or the shuttle in
Speaker 1: this case, what is very very distasteful. I mean, there
Speaker 1: was there was a mission I think I mentioned the
Speaker 1: book where there was sort of dust because the materials
Speaker 1: are sort of quick dried, and the dust would when
Speaker 1: the dust came out, you're inhaling that and that's a
Speaker 1: disturbing and also you don't necessarily want that in your lungs.
Speaker 1: So I think that that was the high tech I
Speaker 1: would guess that when the high tech device malfunctions, um,
Speaker 1: it is more. In fact, I know it is because
Speaker 1: there were people on that mission who opted not to
Speaker 1: use the shuttle toilet and used the contingency, which was
Speaker 1: the fecal bag because they of that problem with this,
Speaker 1: they called it flow back. It was that dust that
Speaker 1: was escaping and flying around. I think it was the Shuttle,
Speaker 1: perhaps it was the I S. S. But either way,
Speaker 1: they preferred to deal with the indignities of the fecule
Speaker 1: bag then to be inhaling that stuff. So that's pretty
Speaker 1: men wraps it up. But I do want to end
Speaker 1: with Mary's take on the future of man space flight.
Speaker 1: I would love to see a Man marsmis partly because
Speaker 1: you know what this is something I didn't realize before
Speaker 1: I did the book. But every program has kind of
Speaker 1: been preparing for the next Like Gemini was just flat
Speaker 1: out working out the kinks for a moonshot. It was like,
Speaker 1: let's practice stalking in space. Let's see what happens to
Speaker 1: two people's skin if they were spaces for two weeks
Speaker 1: without a shower. Let's figure out all the steps here
Speaker 1: in orbit, and then we go into the Moon. So
Speaker 1: Gemini was preparation for Apollo. The International Space Station has
Speaker 1: been this ten year exercising global space cooperation, all these
Speaker 1: different nations communicating, participating, lending expertise and funding, and the
Speaker 1: whole aim of that was too prepare for long term
Speaker 1: space life in space, which was the whole idea. There
Speaker 1: was um getting ready for Mars. So to stop now
Speaker 1: seems like, well, what was all that about? What was
Speaker 1: the past fifty years about? If we're not going to
Speaker 1: go on to Mars? So, I mean, I know that's
Speaker 1: not you know, obviously there's budget issues. It's very expensive.
Speaker 1: I would love it to be a wed love to
Speaker 1: see it, you know, an international effort where a lot
Speaker 1: of different nations are contributing money and expertise, and also
Speaker 1: just everybody on the planet would be watching. It would
Speaker 1: be kind of an amazing event, uh, for the world
Speaker 1: to witness. So, I mean it makes me become set.
Speaker 1: Probably it probably won't happen in my lifetime. I'm guessing
Speaker 1: I'm fifty one, and uh, if we'd be lucky to
Speaker 1: have this happening, I think unless somebody proposes something really radical,
Speaker 1: like one way mission with people go and then just
Speaker 1: live the rest of their lives there and because then
Speaker 1: you know that the tricky part is coming back. So
Speaker 1: there you have it. Our interview with Mary Roach. She
Speaker 1: shared a lot of great stuff and was just a
Speaker 1: real pleasure to talk to um. Just you know she
Speaker 1: turned out. We were wondering, it's like, oh, she's gonna
Speaker 1: be like she is in the book, you know, is
Speaker 1: it gonna be the same experience, and and it really is.
Speaker 1: She was. She was great. Yeah, you know. We asked
Speaker 1: whether she would pack from ours and she said no,
Speaker 1: not the personality type permission to Mars, but a two
Speaker 1: week trip to the moon signed Mary up. After all,
Speaker 1: she did climb aboard the Vomit comment ak a the
Speaker 1: C nine, So I think she's pretty much game for
Speaker 1: just about anything, including topics. So yeah, if you've never
Speaker 1: read anything by Mary Roach, check those out. Um. She
Speaker 1: also did a ted talk um having to do with
Speaker 1: with like ten like things about sex um that came
Speaker 1: out around the time of her Bok books. So also
Speaker 1: you do a ted talk search on that or a
Speaker 1: YouTube search and you can you can find that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and by all means, if you've read her, or if
Speaker 1: you've read Packing from Hers, tell us what you think
Speaker 1: on Facebook We're stuff from the Science Lab, or on
Speaker 1: Twitter or lab stuff, or you can always send us
Speaker 1: an email at science Stuff, how stuff works dot com
Speaker 1: MH for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Speaker 1: Is it how Stuff works dot Com. Want more how
Speaker 1: stuff works. Check out our blogs on the House stuff
Speaker 1: works dot Com home page