VOX POPULI: Earth: Something about the smell of the place

When astronaut Koichi Wakata returned from his lengthy space mission last year, Empress Michiko wrote this poem: "Coming home to the star where summer grass flourishes/ The first thing he mentioned was the fragrance of the grass."

Astronaut Soichi Noguchi, who returned Wednesday from a mission aboard the International Space Station, was also greeted by welcome smells of Earth.

"The moment the hatch (of the re-entry capsule of the Russian spacecraft Soyuz) opened, I felt the strong smells of the soil and grass." Both are smells of life.

Hanging from a parachute, the re-entry capsule landed on a steppe in Kazakhstan in a cloud of dust. There was something delightfully idyllic about the scene after we got accustomed to seeing precision space shuttle landings.

Noguchi came home to the embrace of Mother Earth after five and a half months in space.

He was also greeted by gravity--that strange force that pulls everything down. Taking a bite of a green apple, a local specialty, Noguchi laughed and quipped, "It's heavy. I feel as if I became (Sir Isaac) Newton."

Needless to say, even a lump of iron has no weight in outer space.

Newton, who discovered the law of gravity, likened himself to a child playing on the beach.

"I was like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me," he said.

In short, the great "father of modern science" was wise and humble enough to understand his own insignificance in the world of nature.

At least 200 billion stars like our sun are said to exist in our galaxy alone, and there are 100 billion galaxies in the universe. Faced with this scale of infinity, it actually feels refreshing to realize how utterly insignificant we all are.

It is truly a miracle that I was born on this "star where summer grass flourishes," and I pinched myself to confirm my fortune.

Manned space missions cost astronomical sums of money. I understand that even astronauts sometimes feel ambivalence about the money that could be spent for other immediate needs.

But being able to "play on the seashore" is proof of one's humanity.

Now that Noguchi has smelled the grass and soil, I hope he will tell us about his fruitful space mission.

--The Asahi Shimbun, June 4

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.