Introduction: Not your father's astronaut book: but he'll like it too! -- Training -- Launch -- Orbit -- Spacewalking -- Deep space -- Re-entry -- Afterword: Isolation: better on Earth or in space?

Introduction: Not your father's astronaut book: but he'll like it too! -- Training. Flying jets: a prelude to flying spaceships ; Speaking Russian: learning the language of your crewmates ; Paper bags: learning not to breathe too much CO₂ ; The vomit comet: the first taste of weightlessness ; Survival training: preparation for space calamity ; Space shuttle emergencies: the special hell created by simulation supervisors ; Chez Terry: styling the hair of a superstar crewmate ; It's not rocket surgery: medical training for a spaceflight ; Mouse matters; live animal experiments in space ; Clothes make the astronaut: packing for six months in space ; Astronaut crossfit: physical training for spaceflight ; Jet lag (and space lag): adapting your circadian rhythm -- Launch. Dressing for success (and launch): a very complicated spacesuit ; When nature calls: a spacesuit has no fly ; The red button: how and why a shuttle could be intentionally destroyed ; The ride uphill: staying cool when you're blasting off -- Orbit. Learning to float: how to cope with zero G ; How to build a space station: a painstaking, piece-by-piece process ; Piloting spaceships: rendezvous, docking, and avoiding space junk ; Just add water: space station cuisine ; Making movies: an entire IMAX movie shot in orbit ; ZZZZZZZZ: sleeping while floating is awesome ; No showers for 200 days? No problem! bathing in space ; The glamour of space travel: going to the bathroom in space, uncensored ; Saturday cleaning: an astronaut's work is never done ; Where over the world are we? recognizing places on your planet ; Bad bosses: silly rules and bureaucratic Snafus ; In space no one hear you scream: an ammonia leak threatens the stations' - and the crew's- existence ; It was a long 200 days: Do ISS astronauts make whoopee? (What everyone wants to ask) ; Dealing with a dead crewmember: if a fellow astronaut expires ; Robotic crewmates: remote work outside the ISS ; Phones, email, and other horrors: communicating with Earth (slower than dial-up) ; Hearing voices: how psychologists prepare you for what spaceflight does to your head ; Package deliveries: receiving, unpacking, and repacking cargo ships ; Netflix, Hulu, and baseball: in-flight entertainment ; Fighter pilot does science: experiments are the real point of the mission ; Marooned: what to do if you're stranded up there -- Spacewalking. The world's biggest pool: training underwater for spacewalks ; The art of putting on a spacesuit: and you thought launch was complicated ; Brief the flight and fly the brief: Don't fly by the seat of your pants ; Alone in the vacuum: the spacewalk itself -- Deep space. What you need to get to Mars: a realistic look at what if twill take ; The human body beyond Earth: the physical toll of long-term spaceflight ; Time travel: Einstein and the whole relativity thing -- Re-entry. Riding the roller coaster: re-entry in not for sissies ; Adapting to Earth: you try walking after six months in zero G ; Tragedy: being there for the Columbia catastrophe ; No bucks, no Buck Rogers: meeting with Washington politicians after a spaceflight ; Space tourism: what you need to know before signing up ; Are we alone? Is there a God? and other minutiae: my take on some minor questions ; What does it all mean? the big picture -- Afterword: Isolation: better on Earth or in space?