From: The Daily Mail

[Though tangential, at best, to issues impacting our digital lifestyle, we just couldn’t resist sharing this tidbit on another technology! — Ed.]

The UK Daily Mail reports that a British chemist has been commissioned by NASA to create an artificial version of the fragrance of outer space, which has been described by visitors to the International Space Station as smelling like, “fried steak”, “hot metal” and “welding a motorbike”.

Chemist Steven Pearce, Managing Director of fragrance manufacturing company Omega Ingredients, had already created “eau de Mir” (named after the Russian space station) as part of a project associated with an art exhibit last summer. Upon hearing about that, NASA retained him to come up with an version of the aroma of “space”, itself, to help prepare new astronauts for their first missions.

“We have a few clues as to what space smells like. First of all, there were interviews with astronauts that we were given, when they had been outside and then returned to the space station and were de-suiting and taking off their helmets, they all reported quite particular odours,” Pearce relates.

“The suggestion to us has been that it’s about creating realism for their training,” he adds.

So far, Pearce says he’s succeeded in creating a realistic aroma of fried steak, but “hot metal” is proving more of a challenge.