› added 9 years ago

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TIL that NASA has employed George Aldrich for 40 years as a ‘chief sniffer’. His job being to smell items before they go up to space to make sure no harmful smells will end up on the ISS. His nose also gets 'calibrated’ every 4 months.

Read more spaceflight.nasa.gov

via reddit.com

9OX TIL that Stephen Hawking thinks it would be a bad idea to talk to aliens
D1dlD TIL of the Night Witches, a female only Soviet bomber regiment during World War 2. They would fly high up in their quieter WW1 bombers, cut their engines, and bomb the German front line in the middle of the night. This earned them the nickname "Nachthexen" by the Germans.
YpZP TIL that America’s Debt Is Greater than Entire Eurozone’s (and U.K.’s) Combined Debt
VMo08 TIL Dick Cavett did not realize he was in the movie Apollo 13 until he was at the theater watching it and saw himself.
LB9V TIL: After WWII, the British sold off captured Enigma machines to third world countries, who still believed it to be secure, so that they could spy on them.