NASA man has one of the weirdest jobs in the world and he's been doing it for 50 years

George Aldrich has been working at NASA for over 50 years, currently at its White Sands Test Facility. In 2005, when ABC News visited the facility, his task was to smell a cork NASA hoped to use in a space shuttle. He sniffed the cork and nodded in approval. But not everything passes his test. For instance, when Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, wanted to take mascara on the spaceship, George rejected it due to its odor. As NASA's chief sniffer, George spends his workdays sniffing everything from books, hats, and glue tubes to spaceships. His unique job has attracted significant attention online.

In 2018, George held an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session on Reddit’s group r/space, writing, “I am the ‘Chief Sniffer’ and volunteer ‘Nasalnaut’ for NASA. I smell objects before they go up to crewed space missions.” The goal of his job, he said, was to check for disagreeable or offensive smells that may nauseate astronauts and possibly put astronaut’s productivity and mission at risk.

"Astronauts could actually get sick from being subjected to obnoxious odors," George said. Susana Harper, manager of NASA's nasal lab, explained the process to the Science Channel, saying, “When we’re in the space station or the shuttle, there is no additional air. We don’t open a window and get some fresh air in there. What we have to do here on the ground is verify that we’re not sending new odors up there. Because once they’re up there, they’re stuck there.” Even the faintest of smells can linger in space for years, and can sometimes make astronauts sick.

The smell test was initiated after the Apollo 1 mission in 1967 when a fire erupted in the spacecraft during a launch rehearsal, causing the deaths of three astronauts. Additionally, the Russians had to abort a mission in 1976 due to an unbearable stench in their spacecraft. That’s when NASA decided to do material testing, especially in 100 percent oxygen environments. Test #1 was to check flammability, Test #6 for odor, and Test #7 was toxicity, explained George in a Reddit comment.

Others in the thread asked George hilarious questions. u/rmshackleford asked how astronauts deal with the smell of flatulence in space, to which he replied that they can’t do anything about it, and sometimes humans just stink. Someone else asked, “What is your favorite smell in the world?” George answered, “Odor-free is fine by me.”

In addition to George, the smell test is usually carried out by a panel of four other volunteers. Each expert does a blind smell test of each material and object, ranking it from 0 to 4. Anything over 2.5 fails the test and is not added to the list of things to be sent to space. In case the sniffing experts have a cold, runny nose or sore throat, they have an on-site nurse who comes up and checks their nose before they go in and smell. If they have a pre-existing condition, the nurse doesn’t allow them to take the smell test. “I've been tested more than 900 times; I think have failed twice,” revealed George in a Reddit comment.

Owing to his strange job and impeccable sense of smell, George has been featured on Stan Lee's “Superhumans.” He has also been a guest on Inverse.com's podcast “I Need My Space,” and a recipient of NASA’s Silver Snoopy Award, per IFL Science. The master sniffer, nicknamed “NostrilDamus” and "Nasalnaut" by his team, has also served as a judge in Odor-Eaters' Rotten Sneaker Contest. "My friends and family think I'm a little crazy," he quipped while speaking to the Science Channel.