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<b>The Smell of Moondust</b><br /><br />LINK<br /><br />Moondust. "I wish I could send you some," says Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan. Just a thimbleful scooped fresh off the lunar surface. "It's amazing stuff."<br /><br />Feel it—it's soft like snow, yet strangely abrasive.<br /><br />Taste it—"not half bad," according to Apollo 16 astronaut John Young. <br /><br />Sniff it—"it smells like spent gunpowder," says Cernan.<br /><br />How do you sniff moondust?<br /><br />Every Apollo astronaut did it. They couldn't touch their noses to the lunar surface. But, after every moonwalk (or "EVA"), they would tramp the stuff back inside the lander. Moondust was incredibly clingy, sticking to boots, gloves and other exposed surfaces. No matter how hard they tried to brush their suits before re-entering the cabin, some dust (and sometimes a lot of dust) made its way inside.<br /><br />Once their helmets and gloves were off, the astronauts could feel, smell and even taste the moon.<br /><br />The experience gave Apollo 17 astronaut Jack Schmitt history's first recorded case of extraterrestrial hay fever. "It's come on pretty fast," he radioed Houston with a congested voice. Years later he recalls, "When I took my helmet off after the first EVA, I had a significant reaction to the dust. My turbinates (cartilage plates in the walls of the nasal chambers) became swollen."<br /> <br />Hours later, the sensation faded. "It was there again after the second and third EVAs, but at much lower levels. I think I was developing some immunity to it."<br /><br />Other astronauts didn't get the hay fever. Or, at least, "they didn't admit it," laughs Schmitt. "Pilots think if they confess their symptoms, they'll be grounded." Unlike the other astronauts, Schmitt didn't have a test pilot background. He was a geologist and readily admitted to sniffles.<br /><br />Schmitt says he has sensitive turbinates: "The petrochemicals i