Space: The Smelly Frontier

Have you ever wondered what space smells like? Maybe you thought it smelled like a sterile hospital or maybe a fresh meadow.

Wrong.

According to astronauts who've actually been up into space, it stinks up there, and NASA wants to reproduce that odor. To better acclimate astronauts to space, NASA is gathering intel on what exactly space smells like from the experts — you know, astronauts who have done space walks, ducked back into the ISS and then returned back to Earth.

Assisting NASA is scent chemist Steve Pearce to help them with their mission. The project, while not time sensitive, will hopefully yield the distinct smell of space that has been so hard to pin down.

One astronaut Thomas Jones described the smell of space as "a little like gunpowder" while another astronaut Don Pettit (of the incredible 'star trails' photos) described the smell of space as "pleasant sweet smelling welding fumes."

Other astronauts have said space smells like "hot metal" and even "seared meat."

I don't know about you, but sulphuric metallic fumes doesn't smell like the kind of scent I want to inhale — training or not.