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Meet the Nasalnaut
Roland Piquepaille writes "George Aldrich works at NASA and is not an astronaut. Instead, he's a 'master sniffer.' He tests everything that goes up in space on the shuttle or on the ISS for smelliness, from tennis shoes to teddy bears, and from refrigerators to socks or mascara. Why? Because things smell different in spacecrafts which experience a full day/night cycle every 90 minutes. And bad odors into a spacecraft can even lead to the abortion of a mission, like it happened to a Russian mission back in 1976. Wired Magazine tells us more about NASA's nasalnaut, a man whose colleagues call "Most Smella Fella" and has performed 771 flawless smelling missions. This overview contains more details and selected excerpts from a previous interview with Aldrich given to New Scientist. It also includes a picture showing how the NASA's nasalnaut smells things."
He should post his profile on Dogster.com. Sniff. Sniff.
There was a story in Analog back around '86 that dealt with odors in space. In this case the cook had smuggled garlic on board a ship, despite a ban on it's use.
It revealed the presence of alien parasites when it turned out they were allergic to the garlic.
Story or not though, the idea of being trapped in a small ship with someone reeking of garlic, curry, and onions is enough to make me consider purging the atmosphere.
It certainly sounds like he nose what he's doing.
That's a pretty vague word to describe a smell.
Imagine that - the perfect smell. Eau de Space - available in 75 ml bottles.
i would think its the opposite. usually a sense is heightened the more you use it.
-caf
Hey, you ever sat next to a smelly person on a coast to coast flight? Imagine being locked in a space capsule with them.
The shuttle uses a variety of devices to remove solid and not so solid waste from the crew. There was one mission where the fan which drives the system failed. While it did not end the mission, it was sure a stinky trip.
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
Jack just slipped a stinker! Awful egg-ish odor! Requesting permission to abort mission!
Anything that goes inside the capsule. We do things like paints, magic markers, ink, fabrics, epoxies.
Paint and magic markers eh... Just how much of this does he do? Can't be healthy that's for sure.
Although it's very fine and noble to try to minimize unpleasant odours aboard spacecraft, what can be done about us stinky mammals? Humans supposedly produce half a litre of gastrointestinal gas daily -- I would imagine that in an enclosed space occupied by several humans, that could get unpleasant quickly.
Farts!
10. 34-year-old Tang someone left in orbit after one of the apollo missions
9. Dmitri's socks
8. Even in space, monkeys fling poo
7. When Galactus forgets to use deoderant, half the quadrant knows about it
6. Someone left the windows in MIR open again
5. Venturing too close to the Onion Planet
4. "The Phantom Menace"
3. Smell bits of alien underwear (thank you Douglas Adams)
2. Saddam's WMDs hidden on Mars (see today's Mars news items)
1. And the number one stinky problem in space: "Star Trek: Voyager"
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Coming back from the moon, an astronaut once remarked that, going back into the Command Module some 30 minutes after it had splashed-down and was recovered, he was taken aback by the smell. "My god! How could I have stood that smell for so long???" he asked himself...
OK, maybe it's just me, but isn't sending things to low Earth orbit still $10k/lb?
WHY ARE WE SENDING MAKEUP TO SPACE?!
Even at a few ounces, a mascara bottle is dead weight. surely there's some nut or bolt that they'd love to have a spare of up there instead.
I'm not sure how they measured it either, but it can't have been pleasant. I think it involved a tube...
One thing's for sure: this man has never worked as a sniffer on board a submarine! If he had, he would have lost that keen sense of smell. After a deployment, even the crew's loved ones have a tough time being around them! It's like a gym locker room that never gets cleaned.