Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars, Kate Greene
Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars, Kate Greene
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Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars
Space, Exploration, and Life on Earth

Author: Kate Greene

Narrator: Kate Greene

Unabridged: 6 hr 7 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/14/2020


Synopsis

This program is read by the author

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 NASA’s 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 humanity’s broader impulse to explore. The result is a twined story of space and life, of the standard, able-bodied astronaut and Greene’s brother’s 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.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press

About Kate Greene

Kate Greene was the crew writer and second-in-command on the first simulated Mars mission for the NASA-funded HI-SEAS project. A poet, essayist, and former laser physicist, her work has appeared in multiple publications and radio shows. She’s taught writing at Columbia University, San Francisco State University, and the Tennessee Prison for Women. She lives in New York City.


Reviews

Q: Quantum mechanics backs this up. What if time is less a fundamental property, and more an emergent one, arising from its interactions with other aspects of the universe? In other words, what if time’s forward march of cause-and-effect is just dependent on your perspective, the way the night lighti......more

Goodreads review by Katie

This is a collection of essays organized around themes inspired by Greene’s time as a volunteer in one of NASA’s simulated Mars missions. Since the experiment itself was mostly focused on the dietary needs of a Mars crew, it would have made for some pretty dry reading if she had chosen to go with a......more

Goodreads review by Di

Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars has whetted my appetite for space-themed non-fiction. In twelve essays, Greene discusses everything from food to isolation to space funding, pulling material from her own experiences and other literature to create a very readable book. A career in science journalism a......more