Two years in the making, "Packing for Mars" necessitated visits to aeronautic institutions in various countries, as well as the sipping of her own recycled urine. For research. Asked if it was difficult to get NASA's American astronauts to confess about vomiting or mid-orbit existential crises, she simply says: "Why do you think I went all the way to Russia?" During her Russian trip, it should be noted, she describes touring a museum dedicated to Soviet rocketry, discusses head lice and takes shots of whiskey with retired cosmonauts. All by 11 a.m., Moscow time.

One hundred years ago the first movie about Mars awed audiences. Produced in 1910 by Thomas Edison, A Trip To Mars was a 4 minute sojourn to the red planet. It involved a scientist, magic powders and a giant. Hey, it was 1910. One hundred years later our fascination with Mars remains, although interest in films about the planet waxes and wanes. Much like the moon. But not so frequently.

In conducting research into the physiology of astronauts in space, Mary Roach found out that one man on a Space Shuttle flight wore a sound monitor on his belly for the duration of his voyage. It is Ms. Roach’s style to be less interested in the belly-noise findings than in the freaky-deaky part of the story. “Don’t feel bad for him,” she writes in “Packing for Mars” about that awkwardly wired astronaut. “Feel bad for the Air Force security guy assigned to listen to two weeks of bowel sounds to be sure no conversations including classified information had been inadvertently recorded.” Ms. Roach has already written zealously nosy books about corpses (“Stiff”), copulation (“Bonk”) and charlatans (“Spook”). Each time, what has interested her most is the fringe material: exotic footnotes, smart one-liners, bizarre quasi-scientific phenomena. Yet her fluffily lightweight style is at its most substantial — and most hilarious — in the zero-gravity realm that “Packing for Mars” explores. Here’s why: The topic of astronauts’ bodily functions provides as good an excuse to ask rude questions as you’ll find on this planet or any other.

John Carter of Mars is scheduled to hit theaters on June 8, 2012, one full month after The Avengers arrives courtesy of Paramount, Marvel Studios and, by extension, Disney itself. The first live-action Pixar movie faces some stiff competition in the form of Men in Black 3 at the end of May and the Star Trek sequel later in June.

Mary Roach has made a career writing books that answer questions most people would never think to ask. Having already given readers more than they ever wanted to know about the science of cadavers ("Stiff"), souls ("Spook") and sex ("Bonk"), she turns her inquisitive mind to the cosmos. "Packing for Mars" is a book even the most casual space geek will enjoy. From the race to the moon in the '60s to the current goal of a manned mission to Mars by 2030, the book features chapters exploring everything from vomiting in zero gravity ("Throwing Up and Down") to sex in space ("The Three-Dolphin Club"). It's written in a very casual style, with Roach inserting herself into the story whenever her curiosity demands it. She takes a ride aboard NASA's tricked-out C-9 to experience weightlessness and drinks her own filtered urine — all in the name of research.

Comic Vine received a press release from Dynamite today letting us know that they’re launching WARLORD OF MARS in October for a dollar-priced first issue. The series, spinning out of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic pulp series, will be written by Arvid Nelson, drawn by Stephen Sadowski & Lui Antonio and covered by the likes of Alex Ross and J. Scott Campbell. The famous John Carter of Mars will be joining the impressive roster of heroes Dynamite's steadily assembled from the long, crisscrossing tradition of comics, pulp and literature. I’m talking about characters like the Green Hornet, the Lone Ranger, Zorro, the Phantom, Buck Rogers and Sherlock Holmes.

The temperature's literally freezing, the air is poisonous and you'll die if you go outside without your space suit. Why would you put your hand up to be on the first space shuttle to Mars? Space tourism may not be a reality yet, but in preparation for the day that it is, Guy Murphy has written a book about living on the red planet, titled Mars: A Survival Guide. Murphy wouldn't say no to a seat on the shuttle but he accepts moving to a Martian neighbourhood would have its downsides. However those problems would pale in relation to what else the planet has to offer.

Preparing for a trip to Mars...

THQ has inked a deal that will allow the Syfy channel to produce a two-hour, direct-to-television movie based on Red Faction. And if things go really well for Red Faction's live-action debut, then it could lead to a full television series. Syfy Ventures senior VP Alan Seiffert explained the agreement to Broadcasting & Cable (via VG247). "It is the kind of content that fits our genre," said Seiffert, "It is a great fit for a big Syfy Saturday movie, and if it really works, it is a great back-door pilot."

The Personal Robots Group at the MIT Media Lab is working to develop social robots that can learn to assist people by observing natural human interaction. Mars Escape is a two-player game designed to gather data about human teamwork, social interaction and communication. Help us out by playing the game, either as a human or a robot! Algorithmic analysis of the data collected through these games will enable us to develop natural autonomous behaviors for our robot Nexi. We will then recreate the game environment in real life and demo our findings at the Boston Museum of Science! The game takes about 10 minutes to play, you will be randomly paired with another player online. Players must be 18 and over.

Google and Virgin Group today announced the launch of Virgle Inc., a jointly owned and operated venture dedicated to the establishment of a human settlement on Mars. "Some people are calling Virgle an 'interplanetary Noah's Ark,'" said Virgin Group President and Founder Sir Richard Branson, who conceived the new venture. "I'm one of them. It's a potentially remarkable business, but more than that, it's a glorious adventure. For me, Virgle evokes the spirit of explorers such as Christopher Columbus and Marco Polo, who set sail looking for the New World. I do hope we'll be a bit more efficient about actually finding it, though." The Virgle 100 Year Plan's milestones will include Virgle Pioneer selection (2008-2010), the first manned journey to Mars (2016), a Virgle Inc. initial public offering to capitalize on the first manned journey to Mars (2016), the founding of the first permanent Martian municipality, Virgle City (2050), and the achievement of a truly self-sustaining Martian civilization with a population exceeding 100,000 (2108). “Virgle is the ultimate application of a principle we’ve always believed at Google: that you can do well by doing good,” said Google co-founder Larry Page, who plans to share leadership of the new Martian civilization with Branson and Google co-founder Sergey Brin. "We feel that ensuring the survival of the human race by helping it colonize a new planet is both a moral good in and of itself and also the most likely method of ensuring the survival of our best – okay, fine, only -- base of web search volume and advertising inventory,” Page added. “So, you know, it's, like, win-win." The original contingent of Virgle Pioneers will be selected by numerous criteria, including an online questionnaire, video submission, personal accomplishments, expertise in scientific, artistic, sociological and/or political fields of endeavor, and inadequate Google and Virgin personal performance reviews.

James Kochalka is a bit of a nerd wizard. He’s a renowned comic book artist with a daily strip and several graphic novels to his name, and he’s almost finished designing his first videogame. He’s also a songwriter and musician who fronts his own rock band, called James Kochalka Superstar. Now, the Vermont native can add another gold star to his resume: science fiction film actor. Kochalka plays a supporting role in the new film Mars, an animated feature centering on a love story between two astronauts aboard the first manned mission to the red planet. Kochalka saw Mars for the first time here at the South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival, where it had its world premiere last week.

While Bad Religion aren’t technically heading to outer space, the names of the band members, as well as the name of their record label, Epitaph Records, are going to Mars. Apparently, NASA astronaut Jerry Stoces is a big fan of the band, and according to the Epitaph blog, he listened to the group while training for his mission into space, going down next year on the Lynx spacecraft. Stoces also happens to be working on the next Mars Exploration Rover Mission and had the opportunity to add some names to a microchip that will be carried by the Curiosity rover, which goes to Mars next year. Naturally, he picked the dudes in Bad Religion and Epitaph Records as choices for Martians to understand English proper nouns.

One of the notable things to come out of SXSW is the so-called mumblecore movement, which like the word “indie,” has taken on so many meanings that it doesn’t really mean anything. (Check out Paste’s long-winded answer to the question: “Is Indie Dead?”) The term is mainly used as shorthand for micro-budget talking-head flicks and a generation of moviemakers who work on each other’s films.

Mars is the movie SXSW's been waiting for all these years, something so emblematic and representative of everything you could associate with the festival (Mark Duplass, references to enchiladas and beer, Texas iconoclast Kinky Friedman) that part of me wishes it would never show anywhere else and just pop up annually at the festival as a sort of trademark. But that would be doing the movie a disservice: it's broader than that. Rough around the edges, with some not-quite-endearingly-amateurish performances in parts and lackadaisacal plotting, it's ambles along all slacker-like—and yes, the unusual rotoscoping feature does invoke Waking Life.