The Smell of Space: Mystery & Explanation

[nuby]

This is just weird, and probably has a good explanation.. But how can a space suit or space have a distinct smell? Could the smell be coming from particles off their space suits? If so, how/why?

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/crew/exp6/spacechronicles4.html

 

[Evo]

What were they working on outside? It could be whatever residue might be on the parts of the space station they were working on that rubbed off on their suits.

 

[mgb_phys]

Probbaly plasticisors and cleaning residue outgassing from the suits.

The skylab astronauts mentioned one of the disorientating things was missing the smell of anything - the air cleaning system so efficently removed any chemical residue from the air.
They said they opened the lemon cleaning wipes that came with the food just to have something to smell.

 

[nuby]

Here's a Chemist trying to recreate the smell: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/17/parfum_cosmique/Could it be Ozone?

 

[Dale]

He said that it smelled similar to using an arc welder, so I would guess that it is probably the smell of ions and such deposited on the suit. Maybe some of that is ozone, but I would guess that a lot of it is lighter particles.