Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars

Space, Exploration and Life on Earth

Kate Greene

• Publisher: Icon Books
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781785786839
  9781785786822
• eBook ISBN:
  9781785786846
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Astronomy & Astrophysics

'Filled with wonderment and awe ... Greene's eloquent memoir is equal parts escape and comfort.' Publishers Weekly

A powerful reflection on life in isolation, in pursuit of the dream of Mars.

In 2013 Kate Greene moved to Mars.

On NASA's first HI-SEAS simulated Mars mission in Hawaii, she lived for four months in an isolated geodesic dome with her crewmates, gaining incredible insight into human behaviour in tight quarters, as well as the nature of boredom, dreams and isolation that arise amidst the promise of scientific progress and glory.

Greene draws on her experience to contemplate what makes an astronaut, the challenges of freeze-dried eggs and time-lagged correspondence, the cost of shooting for a Planet B.

The result is a story of space and life, of the slippage between dreams and reality, of bodies in space, and of humanity's incredible impulse to explore. From trying out life on Mars, Greene examines what it is to live on Earth.

'In her thoughtful, well-written account of the mission, Greene reflects on what this and other space missions can teach us about ourselves and life on Earth.' Physics Today

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NOTES

1 “W. H. Hudson says”: “Between Your House and Mine”: The Letters of Lorine Niedecker to Cid Corman, 1960–1970, Lisa Pater Faranda, ed. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1986), 149.

NOTES

1 “Ed White floated”: “Gemini IV: Learning to Walk in Space,”: www.nasa.gov/feature/gemini-iv-learning-to-walk-in-space

2 “first American space walker,”: www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1098.html

3 “NASA wanted Gene Cernan”: www.americaspace.com/2014/06/08/date-with-an-alligator-the-trials-of-gemini-ix-a-part-2; “Astronaut and Cosmonaut Medical Histories,” http://www.doctorzebra.com/drz/s_medhx.html

4 “Ten days after”: Michael J. Neufeld and John B. Charles, “Practicing for Space Underwater: Inventing Neutral Buoyancy Training, 1963–1968,” Endeavor, vol. 39, 3–4.

5 “There is no there there”: Stein’s longer quote is “What was the use of my having come from Oakland it was not natural to have come from there yes write about it if I like or anything if I like but not there, there is no there there.” Gertrude Stein, Everybody’s Autobiography (New York: Vintage Books, 1973), 289.

6 “The essayist John D’Agata”: John D’Agata, “Yucca Mountain as Metaphor in About a Mountain,” interview by Ira Flatow, Science Friday, NPR, March 5, 2010, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124361803

7 “to contend with complicated questions of who we, in our complexity”: A note on the narrative We: Throughout this text, I use the first person plural we (and related pronouns us and our) to mean a few216different groups. We is certainly shifty, even more so than the narrative I, and it’s certainly more politically fraught. I’d like to try to clarify a few types of we I used in this text that explain my relationship to the use of the we in these cases. In the above case, I’m interested in the complexity of the most general human-we there is, the we as a species. It’s a grand gesture, and one I don’t take lightly. I hope that it can be read in a spirit of g enerosity and solidarity and not as an act of claiming or omniscience. No one can speak for each human on the planet. Of course not. But I hope a number of the questions asked in this book have the potential to be relevant to a great many humans alive today. That’s what I aim to get at with this we. Occasionally, I use we to refer, colloquially, to people who may be similar to me in terms of interests or perspectives or experiences. This is the loosest kind of we there is and the trickiest to deploy. It assumes a kinship with the reader that may or may not be there. I’m aware that it doesn’t always work for all readers, and I’ve tried to use it sparingly. In other cases, I use we to refer to my crewmates and me. I can’t speak for them at all times either, but there were enough shared experiences, goals, schedules, observations, etc., that in certain cases, I feel confident, though not perfectly, in speaking for the collective. And finally, there are times when I use we to refer to Earthlings in the most general sense. That is, all creatures of this planet. We really are all in it together.

NOTES

1 “poutine”: OED Online. September 2019. Oxford University Press. www-oed-com.ezproxy.sfpl.org/view/Entry/263616?redirectedFrom=poutine

2 “In 2001, chef Martin”: Crystal Luxmore, “Martin Picard,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, March 10, 2014. www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/martin-picard

3 “The psycho-social preparation”: Kim Binsted et al., “Human Factors Research as Part of a Mars Exploration Analogue Mission on Devon Island,” Planetary and Space Science 58, no. 7–8 (2010): 994–1006.

4 “An NPR headline”: Joe Palca. “Why Astronauts Crave Tabasco Sauce,” All Things Considered, www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/02/23/147294191/why-astronauts-crave-tabasco-sauce

5 “space camp as a kid”: My space camp hopes and dreams were localized to Hutchinson, Kansas, home to the Cosmosphere, an excellent space museum, and space camp. https://cosmo.org/

6 “Fantasy is hardly”: www.youtube.com/watch?v=GilIovrb4uE&feature=youtu.be&t=5m43s

7 “The first food”: https://aas.org/posts/news/2016/11/month-astronomical-history-launch-sputnik-2

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8 “The second food”: https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/apollo-to-the-moon/online/astronaut-life/food-in-space.cfm and www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-12460720

9 “In Packing for Mars”: Mary Roach, Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void (New York: W. W. Norton, 2010), 298–299.

10 “there’s a YouTube video”: Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield makes a burrito in space here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8-UKqGZ_hs

11 “After months ensnared”: This is the one of many different accounts of Shackleton and his crew and ship that are referenced throughout this book. Alfred Lansing, Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage (New York: Basic Books, 2014).

12 “It is scandalous”: Ibid.

13 “the celebrated food writer”: All of M. F. K. Fisher is worth reading, but these quotes appear in the foreword to her book The Gastronomical Me (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1989).

14 “they wanted to avoid”: Skylab wardroom table and hierarchy observation can be found here: Deborah Schne...

Table of contents

• TITLE PAGE
• DEDICATION
• CONTENTS
• EPIGRAPH
• I: INTRODUCTION
• II: ASTRO-GASTRONOMY
• III: ON BOREDOM
• IV: THE STANDARD ASTRONAUT
• V: GUINEA-PIGGING
• VI: ON VESSELS
• VII: ON ISOLATION
• VIII: ON CORRESPONDENCE
• IX: DREAMS OF MARS, DREAMS OF EARTH
• X: DEEP TIME, DEEP SPACE
• XI: HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS
• XII: EXITS AND AIR LOCKS
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• NOTES
• COPYRIGHT