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Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars
Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars: Space, Exploration, and Life on Earth | Kate Greene
8 posts | 5 read | 6 to read
When it comes to Mars, the focus is often on how to get there: the rockets, the engines, the fuel. But upon arrival, what will it actually be like? In 2013, Kate Greene moved to Mars. That is, along with five fellow crew members, she embarked on NASAs first HI-SEAS mission, a simulated Martian environment located on the slopes of Mauna Loa in Hawai'i. For four months she lived, worked, and slept in an isolated geodesic dome, conducting a sleep study on her crew mates and gaining incredible insight into human behavior in tight quarters, as well as the nature of boredom, dreams, and isolation that arise amidst the promise of scientific progress and glory. In Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars, Greene draws on her experience to contemplate humanitys broader impulse to explore. The result is a twined story of space and life, of the standard, able-bodied astronaut and Greenes brothers disability, of the lag time of interplanetary correspondences and the challenges of a long-distance marriage, of freeze-dried egg powder and fresh pineapple, of departure and return. By asking what kind of wisdom humanity might take to Mars and elsewhere in the Universe, Greene has written a remarkable, wide-ranging examination of our time in space right now, as a pre-Mars species, poised on the edge, readying for launch.
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Christinak
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Next up - some space inspired nonfiction

26 likes1 stack add
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CindiB
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Pickpick

Book 4 of my spring Shakespeare & Co “A Year of Reading” bundle, where they send you 4 books/three times a year. This was a fascinating series of articles-well rounded, expansive, & thoughtful. She‘s a good writer. I never would have purchased this book, but I liked it. It is one of those situations where an article would have been great, but a book exceeded my interest level. But for those who are interested, I thoroughly recommend it.

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Lindy
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Astronauts on space walks are always and never alone. They go out in pairs, but they‘re still singularly responsible for maintaining their tether to the station. They have their radios to communicate with Mission Control, but that‘s just voice exchange. And back on Earth, 200 miles down, those people don‘t really know what‘s going on inside the suit, inside the body, inside the mind.
(Internet photo)

27 likes1 stack add
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Lindy
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I happened upon a socially-distant type of street festival on my walk to the library. A fun surprise. 🤹‍♀️

Cathythoughts 😁👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 4y
Lindy @Cathythoughts And the stilt walkers had baby shoes at the bottom of their stilts. So cute! 4y
47 likes2 comments
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CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian
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Pickpick

Finished reading this book while letting my blackberry crumble cool! 😋 It was good, interesting but didn't blow me away with insights. I wanted more emotional resonance and character from this story about an experiment to simulate life on Mars. Clearly written by a science journalist, not a personal essayist. But the part about human bodies & spaceships as vessels, which weaved in her brother's story who passed away related to his disability-wow.

CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian Also: this author is queer and writes a bit about her marriage ending, which I wanted more details about! #QueerBooks #LGBTQBooks #LGBTQ 4y
45 likes1 stack add1 comment
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Well-ReadNeck
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Pickpick
67 likes3 stack adds
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BookNAround
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Today‘s #JulyARC will be released on 7/14.

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Well-ReadNeck
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Mehso-so

Love The Wanderers by Meg Howery and the podcast Habitat both about the HI-SEAS program. This memoir from a participant in HI-SEAS I is interesting, for sure, but not quite as insightful or organized as I would have hoped.