On This Day in Space History: Unexpected Fragrances

As we enter the season of the Thanksgiving Day leftovers stuff-o-rama, we recall (well, at least, I recall) those time when the ladies in our lives uncork and sniff the milk before pouring the milk…even if the milk was just purchased and is two weeks before its “sell by” date.

I, on the other hand, my sense of smell (and therefore my sense of taste) mostly gone, forego the sniffing to determine milk’s drinkability.  Instead, I look for curdling after I pour the milk on my cereal because I couldn’t smell sour milk if my life depended upon it.  Dark family secret: I may even eat the cereal anyway if the curdling is “minor” since I can’t smell or taste the milk.

I figure why waste the cereal?  It’s sort of like eating cereal with cottage cheese.  What’s wrong with that?

It tends to be a “guy thing” to eat most anything from the refrigerator as long as it’s not green and doesn’t have fuzzy, alien spores budding to life on the surface of the 10-day-old cornbread turkey dressing.  That’s, of course, if the food “smells OK”.  The technical term, “OK” though, can be very subjective and often depends on which gender is smelling the food. 

Guys typically don’t have the same acute sense of smell as the ladies in our lives.  This is why deodorant and aftershave were invented.  And from a thoroughly researched historical perspective, these gender differences in olfactory ability have been proven to have evolved from when cavemen hunting animals in days-away-from-the-cave hunting excursions dragged the Mammoth cadaver home expecting excitement, adulation, and a piping hot Mammoth stew lovingly prepared by their cave ladies. Instead, the cavemen were ordered, “Wipe your feet AND get that worthless, stinking, putrid, maggoty, worthless carcass out of my cave!”  

I love Thanksgiving and love the leftovers too.  I love them so much, that I hate to throw any of them away and will subsist from the Horn of Plenty for weeks (well, maybe for a week to ten days or so) long after my wife says, “Enough!”

Now to current space news.  I think the crew of the International Space Station must be comprised of all ladies because when they “popped the cork” on the pressure sealed hatch to take a sniff of the Russian-delivered “fresh” food supplies, they quickly slammed the door shut and told the Russians to, “Wipe your feet.  And get that worthless, stinking, putrid food out of my…” well…perhaps we should let the blog Space.com (space@smartbrief.com) by author Elizabeth Howell, finish the story, “‘Unexpected odors’ on Russian spacecraft delays cargo delivery for ISS astronauts”

Russia’s Progress 90 spacecraft approaches the International Space Station for docking on Nov. 23, 2024. (Image credit: NASA)

“Astronauts found an ‘unexpected odor’ after trying to open the door to a new cargo spacecraft at the space station, according to NASA.

“A Russian Progress spacecraft docked at the International Space Station on Saturday (Nov. 23) at the Russian Poisk module after its launch on Nov. 21. But astronauts couldn’t keep the spacecraft hatch open for long to retrieve fresh food, supplies and equipment due to a stench coming from the capsule.

“‘After opening the Progress spacecraft’s hatch, the Roscosmos cosmonauts noticed an unexpected odor and observed small droplets, prompting the crew to close the Poisk hatch to the rest of the Russian segment,’ NASA officials wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday (Nov. 24). The crew is not in danger and efforts to open the spacecraft are ongoing, the agency stressed.

“After Russian cosmonauts closed the hatch, air scrubbers and contaminant sensors on the ISS ‘monitored the station’s atmosphere’ and flight controllers said the air quality of the ISS ‘was at normal levels,’ NASA noted.

“The Russian cosmonauts who opened the hatch to the Progress spacecraft briefly wore extra protective equipment as a precaution, RussianSpaceWeb stated; journalist Anatoly Zak was monitoring the communications between Mission Control in Houston and the ISS on Saturday.”

Onward and upward!

Sources:  NASA, Space.com space@smartbrief.com