[TheForge][OT] Re: The Smell of Space - sorta OT

[Peter Hirst]

Waaaall, I'm no Croecopia, but I'll bet itd take a lot more molecules than 
an average EVA collects from space, diluted by the re-press air and then by 
the ambient air of the cabin, to register on the human olfactory receptors 
of a NSA scientist who reasons that since the smell came off the suit. I 
must have come from space rather than the airlock that the suit just passed 
through.

Keziah
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Spencer" <mspencer at tallships.ca>
To: <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2008 12:01 AM
Subject: [TheForge][OT] Re: The Smell of Space - sorta OT


>
>> Since the 'smell' is really molecules of something it leaves me
>> wondering just how packed the vacuum of space is with molecules of
>> things.
>
> I once sat in at a small seminar of heavyweight academics (how & why
> is another story) at which someone remarked that it took a mere dozen
> molecules of the female Coecropia moth's pheromone to trigger a
> response in a male.  Jerry Lettvin, Elder Guru and Demigod of such
> things replied, "Three is sufficient".
>
> I don't know if the human schnozz is as good as that of a moth that's
> evolutionarily tuned to chemical courtship but it might not take very
> many molecules of something unusual to light up our olfactory
> switchboard.
>
> - Mike
>
> -- 
> Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~.
>                                                           /V\
> mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
> http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^
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