How Do You Go to the Bathroom in Space?

All the answers to all the questions you have about living in space. Have you ever wondered what it's really like for an astronaut in our space? From the exciting moments to the day-to-day details, from serious to the humorous, here you'll find the most up-to-date answers to every question you've ever had about living in space.

I heartily recommend this book to anyone, adult or teenager, who wants to know what it is really like to fly in space. One would think that astronaut autobiographies would talk about what it is really like to fly a mission, but only Mike Collins' book "Carrying the Fire" really does this. Bill Pogue's book is not an autobiography, but he does, in a question and answer format, tell the reader about the experiences of space flight. Pogue, along with fellow astronauts Gerald Carr and Ed Gibson flew the last Skylab mission leading to the then American record of 84 days in space. This gave Pogue plenty of time to think about his experiences (other astronauts who flew the much shorter duration Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions said that the fact that their flight plan was so crowded, they didn't really have time to absorb the experience). One interesting thing is that Pogue mentions that he did have some problem with space sickness, but that within a day he was able to work a full-day's schedule. Apparently, he was somewhat understating his problem because director of Flight Crew operations Deke Slayton who chose the flight crews, said in his book that this crew suffered more than others from this, and Pogue had it the worst which surprised Slayton since he had flown with the Thunderbirds, the Air Force's aerobatic team which puts planes and pilots through violent spins and dives. This shows that space sickness is a different phenomenon than regular air sickness. Another interesting thing he points out that people don't think about is that once the space helmet is on, it is difficult to deal with itches on the head and face. The helmet does have a protrusion for the nose into which the astronaut can insert his in order blow in order to equalize the pressure inside the ears, and this protrusion can also serve to scratch the nose. However, he points out that his ears would also itch and there was no way to deal with this, except to try to think about something else. After reading this book, I have to take my hat off to these men who endure the dangers and discomforts of space flight in order to push back mankind's boundaries frontiers of knowledge.

Middle to High Schoolers as well as adults will pick this book up out of curiosity and immediately become engrossed. The question and answer format encourages browsing, and the book includes lots of nice features such as an index, a section for related reading, a section of web addresses and mail addresses for space related organizations. Students will find useful report information presented here in a fun format. The book also includes a number of photographs and drawings relating to the questions it helps answer. Students will discover the many effects of living in space from one of the men who has spent the most time there!

Great book for a middle school or high school library. Answers lots of frequently-asked questions about astronaut's life in space.