Library Journal
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With wry humor and an often repellent degree of detail, New York Times best-selling author Roach (www.maryroach.net)-whose previous title, Bonk (2008), is also read by Sandra Burr and available from Brilliance Audio-here discusses the physical challenges astronauts face during space flight, i.e., the zero-gravity realities of disposing of bodily waste, bathing, eating, having sex, and getting sick, along with all of their malodorous consequences. She also tracks NASA engineers' attempts to find solutions to these dilemmas in order to improve astronauts' physical and psychological experiences. Burr narrates in a matter-of-fact tone that well matches Roach's scientific approach. Recommended for adult audiences interested in the curiosities of space flight; not for the queasy. [The New York Times best-selling Norton hc received a starred review, LJ 7/10.-Ed.]-Ilka Gordon, Siegal Coll. of Judaic Studies Lib., Cleveland (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly
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Roach explores the quotidian aspects of space travel for humans with her usual aplomb. She reveals the everyday concerns and aspects-physiological, psychological, and emotional-of long-term space immersion. Sandra Burr proves a great complement to Roach's prose. Her character voices are distinct, and she executes the jargon and technical aspects of space life with a clear and emphatic tone, helping listeners with more complicated passages. She has a matter-of-fact tone with a hint of a wry smile when she explains, say, sex in space, and she is unfailingly clear and affable. A Norton hardcover. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Roach brings intrepid curiosity, sauciness, and chutzpah to the often staid practice of popular science writing. With the human body as her endlessly intriguing subject, she not only investigates but also participates in strange goings-on behind laboratory doors. Following her wildly popular Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (2008), Roach explores the organic aspects of the space program, such as the dangerous bane of space motion sickness and the challenges of space hygiene (the early capsules stunk to high heaven). Roach happily goes weightless on a parabolic flight on a McDonnell Douglas C-9 in a NASA zero-gravity research project, and test-drives a pressurized rover on a lunar landscape in the High Arctic. She devotes one chapter to space food and another to zero-gravity elimination, which is a serious matter, even with a term like fecal popcorning. An impish and adventurous writer with a gleefully inquisitive mind and a stand-up comic's timing, Roach celebrates human ingenuity (the odder the better), and calls for us to marshal our resources, unchain our imaginations, and start packing for Mars.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Popular-science writer Roach (Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, 2008, etc.) entertainingly addresses numerous questions about life in outer space.The author is less interested in the thrills and agonies of space travel than "the stuff in betweenthe small comedies and everyday victories." In lucid writing well-tuned to humor and absurdity, Roach tackles such topics as bowel movements in zero gravity. In fact, all the things that can and routinely do go wrong are vileinhaling fecal dust that coats the mouth with E. coli, for instanceand few have taken the act of vomiting quite to the riotous heights as Roach. Plenty of astronauts succumbed to motion sickness in her presence, but it's a problem often ignored by reports because motion sickness is seen as a weakness, and any perceived weakness could get an astronaut bumped from a mission. The author visits with astronauts to hear about what it is like to share a confined space with another person for many days on end"irrational antagonisms" are mentioned, as are fist fights, another little something not mentioned in press briefingsand to look at the cross-cultural issues that arose when Russians, Canadians and Americans shared a space station. Roach is equally adept at demystifying thorny scientific material, such as the nature of gravity and its role in our livesespecially how the lack of it thins bones, atrophies muscles, does odd things with blood vessels and the heart and is particularly uncooperative when it comes to sex: "thrusting just pushes the object of one's affections away." There is much good fun withand a respectful measure of awe atthe often crazy ingenuity brought to the mundane matters of surviving in a place not meant for humans.A delightful, illuminating grab bag of space-flight curiosities.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Library Journal
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This completely awesome book's awesomeness is so awesomely awesome that it's difficult to get across just how awesome it is. It's a fun, intelligent, and engrossing read, something that a dude can get excited about. As a bonus, it considers sex in space, something I think only Kim Stanley Robinson and Barbarella have done. Space work-as in orbiting Earth, going to the moon, or getting to Mars-is quite romantic in the abstract. Think of relaxed, competent Bruce Dern in Silent Running or George Clooney in Solaris. In reality, space stuff is smelly, hot, and gross. Roach insightfully researches and chronicles all sorts of topics, like what happens when you sneeze in a space suit or how NASA uses cadavers to test how crashes affect the body. Roach's greatest plus is how quickly she gets to the proverbial donkey punch on the varying experiments. For example, when NASA tested astronauts' ability to withstand a 20-day mission, they put men close together in a room with no bathing. They found that after about day eight, astronauts' noses sort of stopped working-it went beyond "smelly." Roach tells readers why: B.O. combines with "bodily emanations that have built up on the skin: grease, sweat, and scurf, to be specific." Scurf? It's shed skin. Nice! (See also LJ's review in the July issue, posting 7/15/10.)-Douglas Lord, "Books for Dudes," BookSmack! 7/1/10 (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.