George Aldrich He has worked for NASA for over 50 years and is currently based at the White Sands Test Facility. ABC News When George visited the facility, his task was to smell the corks that NASA wanted to use in the space shuttle. He smelled the corks and nodded his approval. But not all of them pass his test. For example, when Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, tried to take mascara on the spacecraft, George rejected it because of its smell. As NASA’s Chief Olfaction Officer, George spends his days smelling everything from books, hats, and glue tubes to spacecraft. His unique job has garnered a lot of attention online.
This is George Aldrich, NASA’s current “Chief Sniffer,” whose job it is to smell every item before it goes into space.
He is commonly called “Nostrildamus” 😅 pic.twitter.com/eGmorOaeIF
— Latest from Space (@latestinspace) May 27, 2024
In 2018, George held an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session in a Reddit group. r/Space, “I am NASA’s ‘Chief Sniffer’ and a volunteer ‘Sniff Astronaut,’ who sniffs objects before they are sent out on manned space missions,” he wrote. The purpose of his job, he said, is to check for unpleasant or unpleasant odors that could make astronauts nauseate and jeopardize astronaut productivity and the mission.
“Astronauts can actually get sick if they’re exposed to unpleasant odors,” George said. Susanna Harper, manager of NASA’s Nose Lab, said: Science Channel, “When you’re on the space station or the shuttle, you don’t have any excess air. You don’t open windows to get fresh air. What we have to do on the ground is make sure we’re not sending new smells into space, because once you send them out, they stick around.” In space, even the tiniest smells can linger for years and make astronauts sick.
Smell testing began after the Apollo 1 mission in 1967, when a fire broke out inside the spacecraft during launch rehearsals, killing three astronauts. Additionally, Russia had to abort a mission in 1976 due to unbearable odors inside the spacecraft. That’s when NASA decided to do material testing, specifically testing in a 100% oxygen environment. Test 1 was to check flammability, test 6 was to check odor, and test 7 was to check toxicity, George explained. Reddit comments.
Other participants in the thread also asked George some interesting questions. u/rmshackleford When asked what astronauts do about the smell of farts in space, he said there’s nothing they can do about it, and sometimes people just stink. When another person asked, “What’s your favorite smell in the world?” George replied, answered“If it’s odorless, it’s fine.”
The smell test is usually done by George plus a panel of four other volunteers. Each expert does a blind smell test of each material and object and gives it a ranking from 0 to 4. Anything over 2.5 doesn’t pass the test and isn’t added to the list of things to be sent to space. In case the smell expert has a cold, runny nose or sore throat, an on-site nurse comes and checks your nose before the expert goes in and sniffs. If you have a pre-existing condition, the nurse won’t allow you to take the smell test. “I’ve taken the test over 900 times and I think I’ve failed it twice,” George revealed in an interview. Reddit comments.
Thanks to his odd jobs and perfect sense of smell, George was the man who inspired Stan Lee’sSupermanHe has also been a guest on the Inverse.com podcast “I Need My Space” and is a recipient of NASA’s Silver Snoopy Award. IFL ScienceNicknamed “NostrilDamus” and “Nasalnaut” by his team, the olfactory guru has also served as a judge on Odor-Eaters’ Rotten Sneaker competition. “My friends and family think I’m a little crazy,” he joked in an interview with the Science Channel.
