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

Rob Fertner rfertner at cox.net
Fri Mar 14 11:17:48 EST 2008 

Okay, the air in the airlock is the same as the air in the ship or space
station. Whatever contaminants in the air supply are going to circulate
throughout the closed system. If there's a noticeable smell immediately
after coming back in from space and not at any other time, then the
particles that caused the smell came from outside. There is a factor of odor
fatigue. That is when you are exposed constantly to an odor you stop
noticing it. If the odor originates in the airlock itself, then it would end
up throughout the vessel, after a while you would stop noticing it. Since
the astronaut noticed it when others came back in from space, I'd say the
smell was triggered by particles picked up in space. Space is not a pristine
vacuum. There's a lot crap out there. In Earth orbit, they are at the edge
of our atmosphere. The air is quite thin (too thin to survive) but it is
measurable. There's all sort of fine particulates of debris orbiting the
planet, within the olfactory parameters of the human nose (some in the range
of parts per trillion of air).

-----Original Message-----
From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Peter Hirst
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2008 8:03 AM
To: Sponsored by ABANA
Subject: Re: [TheForge][OT] Re: The Smell of Space - sorta OT

Ok . . . and the number of molecules picked up by a space suit in space 
compared to what it picks up in the airlock  compared to a brazilianth of a 
dram of skunk voodoo is is what, exactly?


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Albin Drzewianowski" <dski1045 at qis.net>
To: "Sponsored by ABANA" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2008 8:19 AM
Subject: Re: [TheForge][OT] Re: The Smell of Space - sorta OT


> The human nose can be trained to very high levels of discrimination. 
> Examples of such are  chefs, coffee roasters, people that mix and 
> developed perfumes.  There are probably many other jobs where the human 
> nose is trained to detect minute variations in odor.  The capability is 
> there, it just needs to be developed through use and training.
>
> D-ski
> Westminster, MD
> "The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne"
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Rob Fertner" <rfertner at cox.net>
> To: "'Sponsored by ABANA'" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Friday, March 14, 2008 7:59 AM
> Subject: RE: [TheForge][OT] Re: The Smell of Space - sorta OT
>
>
> I got this off of Healthline .com:
> Because of their humble abilities of olfaction, humans are called
> microsmatic, rather than macrosmatic. Still, the human nose is capable of
> detecting over 10,000 different odors, some in the range of parts per
> trillion of air; and many researchers suspect that smell plays a greater
> role in human behavior and biology than has been previously thought. For
> instance, research has shown that human mothers can smell the difference
> between a vest worn by their baby and one worn by another baby only days
> after the child's birth.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net
> [mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Rob Fertner
> Sent: Friday, March 14, 2008 6:29 AM
> To: 'Sponsored by ABANA'
> Subject: RE: [TheForge][OT] Re: The Smell of Space - sorta OT
>
> The average human being is able to recognize approximately 10,000 
> different
> odors: Our sense of smell is so powerful that when you smell skunk, you 
> are
> smelling 0.000,000,000,000,071 of an ounce of scent.
> It is important to understand that throughout every day and night of our
> lives we smell a wide variety of odors without being aware of them at all:
> We go about our activities, breathing in and out, as an infinite number of
> chemical molecules interact subliminally with our odor receptors. Only 
> when
> an odor irritates or pleases us or acts as a sudden reminder of the past 
> do
> we pause to take notice.
> People recall smells with a 65% accuracy after a year, while the visual
> recall of photos sinks to about 50% after only three months: Our odor
> memories frequently have strong emotional qualities and are associated 
> with
> the good or bad experiences in which they occurred. Olfaction is handled 
> by
> the same part of the brain (the limbic system) that handles memories and
> emotions. Therefore, we often find that we can immediately recognize and
> respond to smells from childhood such as the smell of clean sheets, 
> cookies
> baking in the oven, the smell of new books or a musty room in Grandma's
> house. Very often we cannot put a name to these odors yet they have a 
> strong
> emotive association even if they cannot be specifically identified.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net
> [mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Peter Hirst
> Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2008 11:35 PM
> To: mspencer at tallships.ca; Sponsored by ABANA
> Subject: Re: [TheForge][OT] Re: The Smell of Space - sorta OT
>
> 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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