by Mary Roach
You wouldn’t complain about a breakfast of Worf’s egg-albumin office paper if you’d sampled Dr. Carl Clark’s paper cuisine. Clark, a Navy biochemist, was quoted in a 1958 Time article on long-duration spaceflight, recommending that astronauts add shredded paper—the ordinary wood pulp variety—as a “thickener” to a main course of vitamin-and mineral-enriched sugar water. Whether Clark viewed the shredded paper as an aid to palatability, regularity, or document security, I can’t say.
“If the imagination is allowed to wander”—and with D.L. Worf it surely should be—astronauts could also eat their dirty clothes. Worf estimated that “a space crew of four men will, for a 90-day flight regime, dispose of approximately 120 pounds of clothing, if laundry facilities are not available.” (Thanks in large part to Sherwin Gormly, they now are.) For a three-year Mars mission, that’s 1,440 pounds of dirty wash/victuals. Worf reported that several companies were already spinning textiles from soybeans and milk proteins and that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has “prepared [textile] fibers from egg whites and chicken feathers that would be highly acceptable as food under the controlled environment of a spacecraft.” Meaning, I think, that a man who is willing to dine on used clothing is a man unlikely to balk at chicken feathers.
But why go to the added expense of shopping at USDA experimental research stations? “Keratin protein fibers such as wool and silk,” muses Worf, “could be converted to food by partial hydrolysis….”
Onboard hydrolysis is the point where astronauts start to get uncomfortable. Hydrolysis is a process by which proteins, edible if not necessarily palatable, are broken down into still edible but typically less palatable constituents. Vegetable protein, for instance, can be hydrolyzed to make MSG. Pretty much any amino acid arrangement can be hydrolyzed, including those of the recyclable that dares not speak its name. A four-person crew will, over the course of three years, generate somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand pounds of feces. In the ominous words of sixties space nutritionist Emil Mrak, “The possibility of reuse must be considered.”
Sometime in the early 1990s, University of Arizona microbiologist Chuck Gerba was invited to a Martian strategy workshop whose topics included solid-waste management. Gerba told me that he recalls one of the chemists saying, “Shoot, what we could do is hydrolyze the stuff back to carbon and make patties out of it.” Whereupon the astronauts in attendance went, “We are not eating shit burgers on the way back.”
Moralewise, this brand of extreme recycling is ill advised. The current Mars thinking is to deposit caches of food ahead of time, using unmanned landers. (The strategy of leaving caches on Mars came up during an interview with some Russian cosmonauts. My interpreter Lena paused and said, “Mary, what did you say about kasha on Mars?”)
A better way to recycle astronautical by-product would be to seal it into plastic tiles and use it as shielding against cosmic radiation. Hydrocarbons are good for this. Metal spacecraft hulls are not; radiation particles break down into secondary particles as they pass through. These fragmented bits can be more dangerous than the intact primary particles. So what if you’d be, as Gerba crowed, “flying in shit!” Beats leukemia.
GORMLY AND I have been talking about psychological barriers to progress. As it turns out, we’re not the only Californians drinking treated urine this afternoon. (In solidarity, Gormly treated a batch of his own.) The citizens of Yellow, I mean Orange, County are drinking it right along with us. The difference, says Gormly, is that Orange County pumps theirs into the ground for a while before they call it drinking water again. “There is absolutely no technical justification for what they’re doing. It’s psychosocial and political,” he says. People are not ready for “toilet to tap.”
Even here at Ames. As Gormly stood in line to pay for his sandwich, the man ahead of us asked what was in the bottle. “It’s treated urine,” said Gormly, straight-faced but obviously enjoying himself. The man glanced at Gormly, looking for something that might confirm the hope that Gormly had made a joke. “No, it’s not,” he decided and walked away.
The cashier was going to be tougher. “What did you say was in the bottle?” She looked like she might be wanting to call security.
This time Gormly said, “Life support experiment.” Confronted with science, the woman backed down.
One of the things I love about manned space exploration is that it forces people to unlace certain notions of what is and isn’t acceptable. And possible. It’s amazing what sometimes gets accomplished via an initially jarring but ultimately harmless shift in thinking. Is cutting the organs out of a dead man and stitching them into someone else barbaric and disrespectful, or is it a straightforward operation that saves multiple lives? Does crapping into a Baggie while sitting 6 inches away from your crewmate represent a collapse of human dignity or a unique and comic form of intimacy? The latter, by Jim Lovell’s reckoning. “You get to know each other so well you don’t even bother turning away.” Your wife and kids have seen you on the toilet. So Frank Borman sees you. Who cares? Worth it for the prize at the bottom of the box.
When someone tells a crew of astronauts they’re going to have to drink treated sweat and urine—not only their own, but that of their crewmates and, who knows, the 1,700 mice in the pantry, they shrug and say, “No biggie.” Maybe astronauts aren’t just expensive action figures. Maybe they’re the poster boys and girls for the new environmental paradigm. As Gormly says, “Sustain-ability engineering and human spaceflight engineering are just different sides of the same technology.”
The tougher question is not “Is Mars possible?” but “Is Mars worth it?” An outside estimate of the cost of a manned mission to Mars is roughly the cost of the Iraq war to date: $500 billion. Is it similarly hard to justify? What good will come of sending humans to Mars, especially when robotic landers can do a lot of the science just as well, if not as fast? I could parrot the NASA Public Affairs Office and spit out a long list of products and technologies* spawned by aerospace innovations over the decades. Instead, I defer to the sentiments of Benjamin Franklin. Upon the occasion of history’s first manned flights—in the 1780s, aboard the Montgolfier brothers’ hot-air balloons—someone asked Franklin what use he saw in such frivolity. “What use,” he replied, “is a newborn baby?”
It might not be that hard to raise the funds. If the nations involved were to approach their respective entertainment conglomerates, an impressive hunk of funding could be raised. The more you read about Mars missions, the more you realize it’s the ultimate reality TV.
I was at a party the day the Phoenix robotic lander touched down on Mars. I asked the party’s host, Chris, if he had a computer I could use to watch the NASA TV coverage. At first it was just Chris and I watching. By the time Phoenix had plowed intact through the Martian atmosphere and was about to release its parachute for the descent, half the party was upstairs crowded around Chris’s computer. We weren’t even watching Phoenix. The images hadn’t yet arrived. (It takes about twenty minutes for signals to travel between Mars and Earth.) The camera was trained on Mission Control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It was standing-room with engineers and managers, people who’d spent years working on heat shields and parachute systems and thrusters, all of which, in this final hour, could fail in a hundred different ways, each of those failures having been planned for with backup hardware and contingency software. One man stared at his computer with the fingers of both hands crossed. The touchdown signal arrived, and everyone was up on their feet making noise. Engineers bear-hugged each other so enthusiastically that they knocked their glasses crooked. Someone began passing out cigars. We all yelled too and some of us got a little choked up. It was inspiring, what these men and women had done. They flew a delicate scientific instrument more than 400 million miles to Mars and set it down as gently as a baby, exactly where they wanted it.
We live in a culture in which, more and more, people live through simulations. We travel via satellite technology, we socialize on computers. Yo
u can tour the Sea of Tranquility on Google Moon and visit the Taj Mahal via Street View. Anime fans in Japan have been petitioning the government for the right to legally marry a two-dimensional character. Fundraising has begun on a $1.6 billion resort in the rim of a simulated Martian crater in the desert outside Las Vegas. (They can’t simulate Martian gravity, but the boots of the spacesuits will be “a little more bouncy.”) No one goes out to play anymore. Simulation is becoming reality.
But it isn’t anything like reality. Ask an M.D. who spent a year dissecting a human form tendon by gland by nerve, whether learning anatomy on a computer simulation would be comparable. Ask an astronaut whether taking part in a space simulation is anything like being in space. What’s different? Sweat, risk, uncertainty, inconvenience. But also, awe. Pride. Something ineffably splendid and stirring. One day at Johnson Space Center, I visited Mike Zolensky, the curator of cosmic dust and one of the caretakers of NASA’s meteorite collection. Every now and then, a piece of asteroid slams into Mars hard enough that the impact hurls small chunks of the Martian surface way out into space, where they continue to travel until they are snagged by some other planet’s gravitational pull. Occasionally that planet is Earth. Zolensky opened a case and lifted out a Martian meteorite as heavy as a bowling ball and handed it to me. I stood there taking in its hardness and heft, its realness, making an expression that I’m sure I’d never before had call to make. The meteorite wasn’t beautiful or exotic-looking. Give me a chunk of asphalt and some shoe polish and I can make you a simulated Mars meteorite. What I can’t possibly simulate for you is the feeling of holding a 20-pound divot of Mars in your hands.
The nobility of the human spirit grows harder for me to believe in. War, zealotry, greed, malls, narcissism. I see a backhanded nobility in excessive, impractical outlays of cash prompted by nothing loftier than a species joining hands and saying “I bet we can do this.” Yes, the money could be better spent on Earth. But would it? Since when has money saved by government red-lining been spent on education and cancer research? It is always squandered. Let’s squander some on Mars. Let’s go out and play.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The first time I visited Johnson Space Center, a sign near the door of the public affairs building said, HARD HAT REQUIRED. And it kind of was. A lot of No’s got lobbed my way. Space agencies keep a firm grip on their public image, and it’s less troublesome for employees and contractors to say no to someone like me than to take their chances and see what I write. Happily there are people involved in the human side of space exploration who see value in unconventional coverage (or are just plain too nice to say no). For their candor and wit—and the generosity with which they shared their time and know-how—super-galactic thanks to John Bolte, Charles Bourland, James Broyan, John Charles, Tom Chase, Jon Clark, Sherwin Gormly, Ralph Harvey, Norbert Kraft, Rene Martinez, Joe Neigut, Don Rethke, and Scott Weinstein; astronauts Roger Crouch, Jim Lovell, Lee Morin, Mike Mullane, Andy Thomas, and Peggy Whitson; and in Russia, cosmonauts Sergei Krikalyov, Alexandr Laveikin, Yuri Romanenko, and Boris Volynov.
I have no background in space or aeromedical matters. Many of the people I spoke to were not so much sources as unpaid tutors. I am talking about Dennis Carter, Pat Cowings, Seth Donahue, George Fahey, Brian Glass, Dustin Gohmert, Sean Hayes, Toby Hayes, Natsuhiko Inoue, Nick Kanas, Tom Lang, Pascal Lee, Jim Leyden, Marcelo Vazquez, April Ronca, Charles Oman, Brett Ringger, Shoichi Tachibana, Art Thompson, Nick Wilkinson, and Mike Zolensky. All spent more time with me than they had to spare, and for this I am truly grateful.
Terry Sunday’s tremendous expertise and thoughtful, thorough review of the manuscript and Linda Wang’s knowledge of congressional archives were indispensable. For their insights into things that happened long ago, I am grateful to Bill Britz, Earl Cline, Jerry Fineg, Dan Fulgham, Wayne Mattson, Joe McMann, May O’Hara, Rudy Purificato, and Michael Smith. Pam Baskins, Simone Garneau, Jenny Gaultier, Amy Ross, Andy Turnage, and Violet Blue provided valuable contacts and assistance, and I thank them too.
Though the public affairs people could not always help in the ways I naively wanted them to, they were extremely knowledgeable and professional. Aaisha Ali, Gayle Frere, James Hartsfield, and Lynnette Madison of the Johnson Space Center were especially attentive, as was Kathryn Major of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute and Trish Medalen at Red Bull. Kumiko Tanabe of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency worked miracles on my behalf. I’d also like to acknowledge the people who put together NASA’s oral history and Lunar Surface Journal projects and the oral history program at the New Mexico Museum of Space History, as well as the staff of the Interlibrary Loan department of the San Francisco Public Library. These are incomparable resources.
Lena Yakovlena, Sayuri Kanamori, and Manami Tamaoki were not only brilliant interpreters but unbeatable travel companions. I am extremely fortunate that Fred Wiemer was available to copy edit both this and my previous book. Thanks to designer Jamie Keenan for another perfect and witty cover; to curator Deirdre O’Dwyer for the hours spent stalking obscure photos and rights; to the fabulous Kristen Engelhardt for spot translations; to the bed-resters for their boundless good humor; to Jeff Greenwald for books, gin, and enthusiasm; and to Dan Menaker for the best line in the book.
As with all my books, any success must be attributed in large part to the collective publishing chops of W. W. Norton. With the help of a dorky rocket metaphor, I would like to single a few people out. My incomparable editor Jill Bialosky deftly steered the manuscript through some needed midcourse corrections, and Rebecca Carlisle, Erin Sinesky Lovett, and Steve Colca expertly managed launch and trajectory of the finished product.
My husband Ed Rachles and my agent Jay Mandel gracefully defused the angst and whinging pessimism that are an inevitable part of all my ventures. I don’t think I could do what I do without the support of these two excellent people.
TIME LINE
1949
Rhesus monkey Albert II becomes first creature to experience zero gravity on board a rocket.
1950–1958
Air Force flies planes in parabolas to mimic zero G and study its effects on chimps, cats, humans.
Nov. 1957
Soviet dog Laika orbits Earth, dies in space.
Aug. 1960
Soviet dogs Belka and Strelka are first to return alive from orbit.
Mercury Space Program Era 1961–1963
Jan. 31, 1961
Astrochimp Ham survives a suborbital flight in a Mercury space capsule.
April 12, 1961
Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space, and first human to orbit Earth.
May 5, 1961
Alan Shepard becomes first American in space.
Nov. 29, 1961
Astrochimp Enos orbits Earth.
Feb. 20, 1962
John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit Earth.
Gemini Space Flights 1965–1966
1965–1966
Air Force tests Gemini diets and “restricted bathing” regimens in space cabin simulators.
Mar. 18, 1965
Alexei Leonov becomes first astronaut to spacewalk outside spacecraft.
Mar. 23, 1965
Gemini III “corned beef sandwich incident.”
June 3, 1965
Gemini IV: Ed White becomes NASA’s first spacewalker.
Dec. 4–18, 1965
Gemini VII: two men, two weeks, no bath.
Apollo Lunar Missions 1968–1972
Mar. 3–13, 1969
Apollo 9: Rusty Schweickart battles space motion sickness.
July 20, 1969
Apollo 11: first humans set foot on the moon.
Dec. 7–9, 1972
Apollo 17: first scientist in space.
Orbiting Space Station (and Space Shuttle) Era 1973–2015
1973–1979
Skylab U.S. space station missions; space showers prove untenable.
1971–1982
Salyut Soviet sp
ace station missions.
Jan. 1978
First U.S. female astronaut candidate.
April 12, 1981
First Space Shuttle launch.
Jan. 28, 1986
Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
1986–2001
Mir.
Nov. 2000
First International Space Station mission.
Feb. 1, 2003
Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
COUNTDOWN
Gagarin, Yuri. Road to the Stars. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing
House, 1962. P. 170.
Gemini VII Voice Communications: Air to Ground, Ground to Air, and On-Board Transcription. Vol. 1, p. 239. NASA History Portal: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/ mission_trans/gemini7.htm.
Platoff, Anne M. “Where No Flag Has Gone Before: Political and Technical Aspects of Placing a Flag on the Moon.” NASA Contractor Report 188251. August 1993.