Today in History: Shepherd Golfs on the Moon

Tiger Woods may rule the golf course here on Earth, but when it comes to extraterrestrial golfing, Alan Shepard reigns supreme. On Feb. 6, 1971, he became the first person to hit a golf ball on the moon, just before reboarding the Apollo 14 spacecraft to return home.

Shepard was the second person, and the first American, to be in space during an early Mercury flight in 1961, although the mission did not achieve orbit (nor was it meant to do so). Alas, an inner-ear disease grounded the NASA astronaut for the next five years, until surgery corrected the problem.

In a 1991 interview, Shepard told of how he brought a collapsible golf club — technically a Wilson six-iron head affixed to the handle of a lunar sample scoop — aboard the spacecraft. “The deal I made with the boss was that if things were messed up on the surface, I wouldn’t play with it, because we would be accused of being too frivolous,” he said. “But, if things had gone well, which they did, then the last thing I was going to do … was to whack these two golf balls.”

On Feb. 6, 1971, Shepard became the fifth person to walk on the moon, and true to his plans, just before ascending back into the lunar module, he took out the golf club and hit two balls. Mission control offered a few pointers on form after his first attempt — “You need to bend your knees a little more, keep your head down” — to which Shepard rejoined: “I’m wearing a spacesuit!”

He was exaggerating a bit on the distance, but with no atmosphere and hence no air resistance, even a one-handed swing sent the first golf ball sailing about 200 meters, roughly the length of two football fields. Shepard did even better on the second golf ball, which traveled a good 400 meters (1312.34 feet, almost 500 yards, or five football fields).

Those two golf balls are still on the moon. NASA gave the makeshift “space golf club” to comedian Bob Hope as a souvenir. Shepard never went to space again (he was already 47 at the time of Apollo 14, the oldest astronaut in the program), but he did become a successful businessman. He died in 1998 from leukemia. But his legacy lives on.

Sources:

The First Person To Play Golf On The Moon

Miles and miles and miles

What Space Smells Like

When astronauts return from space walks and remove their helmets, they are welcomed back with a peculiar smell. An odor that is distinct and weird: something, astronauts have described it, like "seared steak." And also: "hot metal." And also: "welding fumes." 

Our extraterrestrial explorers are remarkably consistent in describing Space Scent in meaty-metallic terms. "Space," astronaut Tony Antonelli has said, "definitely has a smell that's different than anything else." Space, three-time spacewalker Thomas Jones has put it, "carries a distinct odor of ozone, a faint acrid smell." 

Space, Jones elaborated, smells a little like gunpowder. It is "sulfurous."

Add to all those anecdotal assessments the recent discovery, in a vast dust cloud at the center of our galaxy, of ethyl formate -- and the fact that the ester is, among other things, the chemical responsible for the flavor of raspberries. Add to that the fact that ethyl formate itself smells like rum. Put all that together, and one thing becomes clear: The final frontier sort of stinks.

But ... how does it stink, exactly? It turns out that we, and more specifically our atmosphere, are the ones who give space its special spice. According to one researcher, the aroma astronauts inhale as they move their mass from space to station is the result of "high-energy vibrations in particles brought back inside which mix with the air." 

In the past, NASA has been interested in reproducing that smell for training purposes -- the better to help preemptively acclimate astronauts to the odors of the extra-atmospheric environment. And the better to help minimize the sensory surprises they'll encounter once they're there. The agency, in 2008, talked with the scent chemist Steve Pearce about the possibility of recreating space stench, as much as possible, here on earth.*

Pearce came to NASA's attention after he recreated, for an art installation on "Impossible Smells," the scents of the Mir space station. (This was, he noted, a feat made more complicated by the fact that cosmonauts tend to bring vodka with them into space -- which affects not only the scent of their breath, but also that of their perspiration.) The result of Pearce's efforts? "Just imagine sweaty feet and stale body odor, mix that odor with nail polish remover and gasoline ... then you get close!"

Those efforts, alas, did not move forward. But had Pearce continued in creating a NASA-commissioned eau de vacuum, he would have had the aid of wonderfully poetic descriptions provided by astronauts themselves. Such as, for example,this sweet-smelling stuff from wonder-astronaut Don Pettit: 

"Each time, when I repressed the airlock, opened the hatch and welcomed two tired workers inside, a peculiar odor tickled my olfactory senses," Pettit recalled. "At first I couldn't quite place it. It must have come from the air ducts that re-pressed the compartment. Then I noticed that this smell was on their suit, helmet, gloves, and tools. It was more pronounced on fabrics than on metal or plastic surfaces."

He concluded:

It is hard to describe this smell; it is definitely not the olfactory equivalent to describing the palette sensations of some new food as "tastes like chicken." The best description I can come up with is metallic; a rather pleasant sweet metallic sensation. It reminded me of my college summers where I labored for many hours with an arc welding torch repairing heavy equipment for a small logging outfit. It reminded me of pleasant sweet smelling welding fumes. That is the smell of space.

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Space smells like seared steak, hot metal, astronauts report