Don't misunderstand, while the book is funny as hell, this is a very detailed explanation of all the bizarre research and testing that has to be done in order to certify equipment for space.
There are great excerpts from mission transcripts that you've never heard of before ("Houston, standby, there's a turd floating by me..."), and wonderful interviews with personnel and astronauts.
I've been listening to the audiobook, and the reader is a woman with a great dead-pan delivery. There was one section of the book where the author spends some time running down reports of an adult film reputedly featuring the first and only zero-G sex scene made in a plane performing hyperbolic flights to simulate weightlessness, and I was laughing like a hyena for 20 minutes.
http://www.amazon.com/Packing-Mars-Curi ... 10&sr=8-1\
“America’s funniest science writer” (Washington Post) returns to explore the irresistibly strange universe of life without gravity in this New York Times bestseller.
Space is a world devoid of the things we need to live and thrive: air, gravity, hot showers, fresh produce, privacy, beer. Space exploration is in some ways an exploration of what it means to be human. How much can a person give up? How much weirdness can they take? What happens to you when you can’t walk for a year? have sex? smell flowers? What happens if you vomit in your helmet during a space walk? Is it possible for the human body to survive a bailout at 17,000 miles per hour? To answer these questions, space agencies set up all manner of quizzical and startlingly bizarre space simulations. As Mary Roach discovers, it’s possible to preview space without ever leaving Earth. From the space shuttle training toilet to a crash test of NASA’s new space capsule (cadaver filling in for astronaut), Roach takes us on a surreally entertaining trip into the science of life in space and space on Earth.