NASA nose: Before flying shuttle, a special person sniffs. Everything that goes into space, sniffs a special expert as they call is a sharp muscular pain.

Crocodile conflict. Since 1968, the main Space Center NASA is the Kennedy Space Center - is based on Merrit Island in Florida. However, only 9% of the space of the cosmodrome is used for its intended purpose, and the rest of the territory occupies a wildlife reserve. This means that the guests of the Space Center are sometimes becoming residents of the National Park. All such "tourists" do not deliver problems to NASA employees, except for one American alligator. Local reservoirs are an excellent source of food for reptile, and from time to time they love to not sleep in the sun near auto parks, runways or pedestrian zones. In addition to the fact that the Alligator is a danger to visitors of the cosmodrome, the crocodiles themselves may suffer: at the moment, scientists are studied whether the NASA technologies are damaged to the environment and its wild inhabitants. And on the video, by the way, the alligator filmed by tourists during the tour of the Space Center of Kennedy.

Songs performed by land.In 2012, NASA released an audio recording called "EarthSong" ("Song of the Earth"), which "sang" the planet itself. The record was made by two NASA spacecraft studying the Earth's radiation belts (RBSP, also known as Van Allen Probes). Earth sounds are a consequence of an electromagnetic phenomenon caused by plasma waves in the radiation belt of the planet. Scientists poetically called this phenomenon "Choir". According to Craig cells from the University of Iowa, who participated in the creation of an Emfisis receiver to collect signals, that way we would hear the radiation belt, be in our ears built-in radio antenna.

Perfect swimsuit from NASA. Remember the scandalous story with swimming suit on the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008? Unprecedented results showed swimmers dressed in Swimwear LZR RACER: Athletes beat many world records and won 33 Olympic medals. After the Olympiad and the next European Championship, the International Footage of Europe has changed swimsuit requirements, in fact, prohibiting LZR Racer. Speedo sports brand Speedo suits were developed in conjunction with NASA: the purpose of scientists was the maximum reduction in resistance, for which the knowledge of the aerodynamics of NASA staff was useful. More than 60 samples of the fabric were tested in aerodynamic pipes, and as a result, a LZR Racer swimming suit was created, which instead of the traditional seam were "sewn" by the method of ultrasonic welding. In general, just space, not a swimsuit.

Survival course for NASA astronauts- Mandatory point in preparing for flight into space. Yes, to survive in outer space is Polwy, it is necessary to die yet and on Earth, if, when landing, something went wrong and the astronaut turned out to be much further from the planned landing site. Survival skills in the wildlife of astronauts are trained from the 60s on air bases in Nevada and Panama. True, so far in the history of NASA, the strongest deviation from the course during the landing occurred with the pilot of the Aurora-7 spacecraft by Malcolm Carpenter: the capsule was at a distance of 400 km from the point where it was expected. Astronauts discovered for several hours. In this, he was lucky much more than the Soviet cosmonauts Alexei Leonov and Pavel Belyaev, who had two days to spend heroically in the taiga.

Vibration test, or Test on shaking, all NASA spacecraft pass. Strong vibrations during the launch of the rocket should not be a hindrance, because even one conditioned poorly fixed screw can lead to a disaster. Modern rockets are tested on a powerful vibrationboard, 7 m wide and weighing 25 thousand kg, at the Plum Brook station in the world's largest terminal vacuum chamber (SPF). Each module is subjected to dozens of tests before it is allowed to fly. But in the 60s, testing technology was, to put it mildly, simpler: in fact, the rockets were shaken by manually by the "Tanya-Pull" method. However, it is better to see once - before you recording the first similar test.

The weather in the house in NASA is created independently. NASA develops and builds one of the largest devices in the world. For this, respectively, they require huge and high facilities. For example, the building of the vertical assembly (Vehicle Assembly Building, Vab), where cosmic ships are going, is the fifth in height of the building in the world. The internal volume of VAB is 3.7 million cubic meters. Because of the sizes of the VAB and the wet climate, Florida NASA faced an unexpected problem - sometimes the clouds begin to form in the building itself. When assembling spacecraft, the cost of billions of dollars, every detail is important, and similar climatic quirks could become a serious interference for NASA. To overcome this phenomenon, I had to create a special system of air conditioners, weighing 10 thousand tons.

Unpaid fined for garbage releasewaiting for its own 30 years. Skylab, the first and only national orbital station of the United States, descended from the orbit and collapsed in 1979. The drops of falling not burnt parts of the station have shifted from the intended course and fell in the area of \u200b\u200bthe shores of Western Australia. The Australian County Esperance presented the NASA account of $ 400 for the release of garbage, but the fine was paid only to 30 years later, after the story was told on the California radio.

Question of bioethods In space has always been a problem for NASA. Today, astronauts enjoy high-tech restrooms, but it was not always. The situation with cosmic toilets perfectly illustrates the case during the "Apollo-10" mission. Captain of the spacecraft Thomas Stafford found excrement floating over the air. This story was published after decrypting conversations on board. Filming up who from astronauts belonged to such an unpleasant flying object, almost eclipsed the test flight itself to the moon. By the way, none of the crew members admitted, and the mystery still remains unsolved.

Nyukhach is a position for NASA. Meet: George Aldrich, officially his work position is called a specialist in chemicals. Essentially George is the main nose in NASA: he must sniff everything that NASA is going to send to space. The closed space and heat amplify the smells, and the ability to open the window and ventilate the room at astronauts will not. Therefore, Nyhatcha's task is to save crew members from unpleasant odors during the flight. George Aldrich is not the only one: the NASA serves a whole snuff. His employees every four months have a special test for professional benefit - they need to determine the smell content of ten cans.

Riot on the ship. Space ship!In 1974, the SkyLab 4 crew spent in space 84 days - this is quite a long time for the team, and the non-good stress resistance is required to go smoothly. So, about a month before the end of the mission, the crew made a kind of rebellion: the astronauts took a unplanned day off, disabling all means of communication with the center of flight control and, instead of the habitual hard work, admired fantastic landscapes. Of course, the CUP was not delighted with such a scenario, but this flight became an important milestone in the study of the influence of space flights to the human psyche. Since then, NASA, planning a mission, especially closely relates to resting cosmonauts.

And now one more example of an unusual profession. What is NASA, you know - National Aeronautics and Space Administration. They launch satellites and spacecraft - "Shuttles". Among the masses of "eggs" (that is, highly subsided) employees - five Nyukhach. They sniff everything that should fly into space with the crews of astronauts.

One of the reasons for the appearance of this profession was not a very successful flight of the Soviet crew Boris Volynova and Vitaly Zholobov on the Soyuz-21 spacecraft in 1976. Some time after the staffing of the orbit, the ship commander reported that a foreign smell appeared in the cockpit. At first, they did not pay attention to the annoying interference, and more than a month, our astronauts spent in the atmosphere of increasing Woney either because of the fuel seeping somewhere, or because of the smells of plastic sheathing ... an unforeseen equipment failure forced to minimize the program and the crew returned to the ground. But it does not happen an emergency situation, the flight would still have to stop out of the smell. In space, you will not open the vehicle for venting ...

One of Nyukhachy Nasa named George Aldrich told about his amazing profession. He received her enough unexpectedly. 18-year-old George served in the fire protection, without even suspecting that he had a unique "nose." On the announcement of the set of volunteers in the "aromatic" department of NASA, he filed a statement and took part in control testing. To his surprise, he passed a medical examination and all the tests.

Aldrich correctly determined bottles with smelling substance (he was offered ten flasks, of which three were with clean water). It was distinguished and allocated from the proposed bouquet of aromas seven main - musky, floral, ethereal, camphor, mint, sharp and grinding.

George was credited to work. Since then, for three decades, he participated in more than seven hundred preparations for launch. And every four months he with colleagues passes strict sense of smell. A good smell specialist should have not only a unique sense of smell, but also a good associative and rapid memory, as well as ... fantasy.

Together with other Nyukhachi, he spoils absolutely everything on the booth, from the installation boards to the clothes of astronauts and pasta in the fountain pen. The fact is that some items that have no smell in the Earth's atmosphere, in space suddenly become gas sources and smell ...

Nyukhachi estimate odors on a scale from 0 - invisible, then barely or easily detectable - this is 2, then it goes unwanted - 3 and, finally, 4 is aggressive. If the estimate is above two and a half points, the odorless object without conversations is covered from the spacecraft. All personal belongings of astronauts are checked (so, one of the first female astronauts Sally Ride Nyukhachi selected ... Mascara, too, was too soul). And when preparing for other flights, Lotion after shaving was rejected, a small album with domestic photos and even someone's laptop (Portable baby-computer IBM) ...

Traditionally, on Saturdays, we publish for you answers to the quiz in the "Question - Answer" format. We have the most different questions, both quite complicated. Quiz is very interesting and quite popular, we simply help you test your knowledge and make sure that you have chosen the right answer option, out of four offered. And we have another question in the quiz - What does George Aldridge do with astronaut things before flying into space?

• A. Weighs
• B. Processes antiseptic
• C. Nyukhet
• D. Packaging

The correct answer is s - sniff

George Aldrich - famous man. And he became famous with his nose, which colleagues call the "serious device in the NASA service." Thanks to the sense of sense, Aldrich now has been working for a regular snuff of space agency and on debt service, and not a whim for sake sniffs without exception items sent to space.

The fact is that any item that turns out to be on the spacecraft leaves there its smell. Unlike the earth's room, it is simply impossible to get rid of unpleasant smell.

Susanna Harper, the head of NASA's nasal laboratory, explains: "On earth, you can get rid of smell due to the influx of fresh air, which gradually dissolves the smell molecules to invisible. In space it is absolutely impossible - you will not open the porthole to air the room. "

An amazing thing, I would have thought, whatever, but not that. Weigh, process the antiseptic and packaging options that are very obvious and too simple to make someone famous. If you go from nasty, then there should be something unusual, maybe he sniffs the things of astronauts?

George Aldrich is a regular "Nyukhach," and he sniffs for NASA for 40 years.He performs important and responsible work and perfectly copes with it, due to its unique ability to distinguish an incredible amount of odors.

This procedure is necessary to prevent the appearance of unpleasant and even disgusting smells at the station or ship in space. The fact is that the smell is due to molecules, which, hitting in a closed space, will not just go anywhere. In order to get rid of the smell, it is necessary to ensure the influx of fresh air, that is, dispel these molecules. It is necessary to ventilate the room, we simply open the window on Earth, and in the conditions of space it is impossible to do it! Therefore, the smell will never leave space facilities.

Even there was a case of termination of the expedition due to an unpleasant smell.This is how oldritch is indispensable for the conquest of cosmos. And he is not going to stop his mission.

More interesting answers.

At the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems, electronics teach to recognize the disease in exhalation [photo]
What smells?
Colleagues read the fun news: "Imagine, in Naba there is a uncle, who is forty years sniffing astronauts! And we have something like that? Write?"
About the professional "Nyhatcha" in NASA I, for his shame, did not know anything. Although the smells in space wrote more than once. In the early 2000s, I participated in the SFINCSS experiment. Before starting flights of real astronauts to the International Space Station, several test crews were put into tanks resembling orbital modules, and sent to "flight". Everything was like in orbit: the atmosphere, the noise of fans. Just without weightlessness.
James Aldrich for 40 years sniffing things astronauts. Photo: NASA.
It turned out that a particular atmosphere and noise fans quickly get used to. But the measured life of our organism does not like. And any unexpected incident becomes an event. Even dinner at a common table filled with bright smells. I still remember the solar smell of black bread, the sharp aroma of the cut-down bulbs, a shock bar of a chocolate bar.
When cosmonauts "Truck" brings parcel with fresh products, they first sniff it. The most beloved and trembling smell of apples and oranges. This is the smell of the house and the holiday.
Cosmonauts even argue that they survived how space itself smells. After going beyond the ISS when you remove the spacecraft, you can catch it for a few seconds. He did not find earth analogues. "The closer to the smell of ozone. Clean, as if the thunderstorm passed," says the cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov.
But a strong aroma in orbit can be so scribed into the nose that the crew will lose their performance for several hours. Therefore, really forty years ago, George Oldrich took a job in NASA, as he calls himself, "Nyukhonavta". On a business card, he has pictures of shuttle and skunk. Since 1974, he spent almost 900 examinations.
Photo: NASA.
George sniffs all the things of astronauts and the equipment that is sent aboard. He tells about the astronaut, who wanted to take a model of the ship with him to glue, - the hobby is like a person. George endured a lot of glue varieties before chosen safe. But more trouble with the cargo of women. Sally Ryde is the first American, visiting space, brought together a set of cosmetics. Mascara "Nyukhach" rejected.
George Aldrich gives interviews, stands up with lectures. And ours? I seem to know all key specialists, but it is necessary ... I called the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems.
Photo: NASA.
And we have electronic!
ICBP - the Institute, which is responsible for everything that is associated with the health of astronauts.
- Come, introduce! - cheerfully responded to my call.
And then in front of me sits by the Zavabitoria, Doctor of Medical Sciences Lana Nizamovna Muhamediev. As a real intelligent, she tries not to show how boring her questions about "sniffing" of astronauts. And soon I understand why. Russia long-term flights do more than forty years. The fact that at the beginning of the 70s of the last century was considered a discovery, today it is clearly painted in the instructions, everybody, and therefore not interesting.
1. Coal filter. 2. Air intake (may be different diameter). 3. Box with sensors. Air is driven through the device. At this time there is his analysis. Photo: From the ICBP archive.
Simply puts: over the years they sent anything to space. Even stones charged in the pyramid. And now a specialist with closed eyes knows what thing and in what package to skip into orbit. Is that when you develop a new module, the ICPPs send its drawings and the designs of the designers, from which they are going to make an inner finish. If you want to use new polymer materials - then "Nyhati" are connected.
There are no particularly gifted to the ISBP. As it makes no sense to keep a separate Nyhatcha. Space is not a perfume laboratory. New material sniffing several employees. Results are evaluated by a special scale. If the smell is sharp, unpleasant, it is clear: the material is rejected.
In fact, the smells are a small tolik of what the scientists should follow, so that the astronauts could work in orbit with full return. There are things more dangerous than an unpleasant smell (it, if anything, at least you can drive with the help of fans). How to., For example, with toxic liquids for cooling or heating the station? They should be such that even when an accident, if the station fall into the atmosphere, astronauts did not slide with poisoning. I remember hard for our cosmonautics 1997, when at the station "The world" the heat carrier ethylene glycol resulted out of the pipes. But even in such a situation, the crew was able to continue repairs.
Photo: From the ICBP archive.
Or exhaled by crew air ...
And then our conversation was revived. And when the institute engineer Yuri Smirnov brought a metal box with several tubes and presented: "Electronic nose!", The conversation at all boiled.
"And to exhale relieves all the nasty ..."
When Arkady Raykin pronounced this famous monologue, he didn't even imagine what a man actually exhales himself!
Studies of exjury scientists took just ten years ago, in Austria, even a special institution was discovered. Connected both in ICPP, especially since similar work and previously led: it was necessary to understand which atmosphere is formed in a spacecraft. Today, 120-140 chemical compounds are already recognized, which fall into the atmosphere every time we do exhale. And the school was taught only about carbon dioxide!
- Sensors have become so sensitive that we can "hear" the selection of microbes in the intestines, cancer cells in a light or in the bladder, - explains to me Lana Nizamovna.
Photo: From the ICBP archive.
- That is, it is not necessary to swallow the intestine, do not do a bunch of analyzes? I got into the tube - and that's it?
- Over time it will be.
Lana Nizamovna says that the appearance of cancer cells can be "to air" even at the stage of presequest, when there are only few pieces in the body! Or to prevent the incidental stress - this is when the cell is damaged due to oxidation. It is he who causes many diseases - from Alzheimer's schizophrenia and illness to angina and other heart problems.
There is even an experienced nose of Aldrich will not help. Need sensitive equipment. Her and created German and Russian scientists. This is an electronic nose. As I understand it, the sensors can be changed in it by adjusting the device to analyze certain compounds.
Photo: From the ICBP archive.
By the way, the question in the style of "What? Where? When?": What do you think for what in Germany first did such devices adapted? Control the quality of beer!
Now the electronic nose monitors the cleanliness on the ISS. Last year, he first sniffed the station - so they found out where new microorganisms appeared, what is the composition of the air. There are such places in the modules where the cosmonaut does not fit. There is a fungus. And a thin tube-nose of the device shove out the panel is not a problem.
The next step is to draw up a map of compounds that hazardous cells allocate, and to teach the nose "by smell" to determine the coming diseases. How many years this work will take, while it is not clear. Our scientists together with the doctors of one of the Munich clinics only accumulate knowledge.
... but for now let George Aldrich sniffing astronauts. What else to do?
Photo: From the ICBP archive.
By the way
Changing odors in space for ten years, perfumers have been used. For example, the unexpected fragrance of the Spirits of Zen Japanese firm Shiseido was obtained by rose, which in 1998 sent to space on shuttle.
Her aroma in weightlessness turned out to be sweeter and slightly less fresh than on earth. Astronauts with thin plastic sticks coated with a special solvent, recorded the composition of the fragrant flowers isolated by flower. And then on the land of chemists, the accurate composition of the fragrance was established and reproduced it for perfume.