The EconomistJanuary 20th 2018 Science and technology 672 mean thatif and when it works reliably, the
costs of gettingbig objects into space could
fall by an order of magnitude from those of
the Delta IV Heavy. Indeed, the new rocket
already has customerslined up, including
Arabsat, a satellite-communications firm,
and America’s air force. The most eye-
catching mission is to send two paying
touristson a jaunt around the moon and
back. SpaceX says the daring duo have al-
ready paid a “significant” deposit. Their
trip is, perhaps ambitiously, scheduled for
some time this year.
The Falcon Heavy is not the only big
rocket in development. China and Russia
are both working on craft—the Long March
9 and the Energiya-5V—that will rival the
Saturn V’s lifting prowess. Mostly, the
fledgling private space industry has con-
fined itself to smaller machines. A firm
called Rocket Lab may soon become the
first startup since SpaceX to reach orbit. Its
diminutive Electron rocket can carry loads
of150kg. But Mr Musk has high-end compe-
tition in the form of Jeff Bezos, the founder
of Amazon, who runs his own rocketry
firm called Blue Origin. This company is
building a lifter called the New Glenn
which it hopes will take off in 2020 and
will be able to carry 45 tonnes into orbit.
Mine’s bigger than yours
Mr Bezos may be pipped to the post by
America’s government, which is due to
launch Block 1, the first version of its Space
Launch System (SLS), in 2019 or 2020. This
rocket will be able to carry 70 tonnes into
orbit. The final variant of the SLS, Block 2,
due in 2029, should manage double that. It
has been explicitly designed to enable
NASAto go back to the moon and, perhaps,
eventually on to Mars.
But the SLSis far from universally popu-
lar. Its critics see it as little more than a job-
creation programme for established aero-
space companies, which are politically
powerful. Nor is it cheap. NASAhas esti-
mated it could cost $18bn. The progress be-
ing made by America’s billionaires certain-
ly makes it harder to justify their
government’s attempts to duplicate their
efforts. And SpaceX will probably end up
taking the crown in any case. The planned
sequel to the Falcon Heavy is the BFR, or“Big Fucking Rocket”, whose name neatly
sums up its design goals. Capable of lifting
up to 250 tonnesinto orbit, and intended to
enable Mr Musk’s oft-stated wish to colo-
nise Mars, it would be far and away the
most potent rocket ever built. SpaceX says
the BFRwill be ready by 2022, though few
will be surprised if that date slips. Still, if it
ever flies it would, after half a century, at
last bring the Saturn V’s reign to an end. 7Fly-weight contestSources: SpaceX; United Launch Alliance; press reports *Non-reusable configuration only †Planned for 2029 ‡Upper estimateSelected rockets Payload to low-Earth orbit, tonnes
0 50 100 150 200 250Saturn V NASA US 1967-73Vehicle Operator Country actual planned
Delta IV Heavy ULA US 2004-Falcon Heavy* SpaceX US 2018
SLS NASA US 2020New Glenn Blue Origin US 2020BFR* SpaceX US 2022Long March 9 CNSA China 2028
Energiya-5V Roscosmos Russia 2028Block 1 Block 2†Dates of operationLaunched successfully Launch scheduled Under development‡T
HE human sense of smell is weak. That
is well known, and is suspected by
many anthropologists of beingthe result
of a trade-off in the primate brain in favour
of visual processing power. In the specific
case of people, however, the relative weak-
ness of smell compared with sight extends
to language, too. Humans have no difficul-
ty putting names to colours but are notori-
ously bad at putting names to odours.
That might also be caused by how the
brain is wired. But some doubt this. They
suggest it is more likely a consequence of
the tendency of languages to contain
words useful to their speakers. Since
smells matter little to most people, most
languages have few abstract words for
them. A study just published in Current Bi-
ology, by Asifa Majid at Radboud Universi-
ty in the Netherlands and Nicole Kruspe at
Lund University in Sweden, supports this.
Dr Majid knew from previous work she
had done that the Jahai, a group of hunter-
gatherers who live in western Malaysia,
are remarkably good at naming odours.
For example, when she asked some Jahai,
and also a comparable group of American
volunteers, to name colours and odours
they were presented with, the Americans
generally agreed with one another when it
came to naming colours but agreed much
less when putting names to odours. Whenpresented with cinnamon, for example,
they described it variously as sweet, spicy,
wine, candy, edible and potpourri. When
presented with baby powder they offered
vanilla, wax, baby oil, toilet paper, dentist
office, hand lotion, rose and bubble gum as
descriptions. Jahai answers, in contrast,
were in equal agreement about both
odours and colours.
When she published this result, Dr Ma-
jid suggested that it might, in part, be be-
cause the Jahai have a dozen words dedi-
cated to describing different sorts of smells
in the abstract (the equivalent of colour-
words such as red, blue, black and white,
of which there are generally reckoned to be
11 in English). For example, the Jahai use the
word “cxås”for stinging sorts of smells as-
sociated with petrol, smoke and various
insects, and “plxex”for bloody, fishy and
meaty sorts of smells. According to Dr Ma-
jid, only “musty” is able to act in this way
in English without drawing on analogy
(banana-like, gooseberry-noted, and even
earthy and sweet-smelling, are all analo-
gies of some sort).
To test how important someone’s way
of life is to his or her use of abstract words
for smells, Dr Majid and Dr Kruspe looked
at how two other groups of people from
the Malay Peninsula used terms for col-
ours and odours. These were the Semaq
Beri, who also hunt and gather for a living,
and the Semelai, who cultivate rice. Cru-
cially, although these two peoples make
their livings in different ways, their lan-
guages are closely related and they both
live in the rainforest.
Dr Majid and Dr Kruspe asked 20 Se-
maq Beri and 21 Semelai to name odours
and colours presented to them at random.
The colours were on 80 differently hued
cards; the odours on 16 variously scented
sticks. The sticks were daubed with smells
like (to English-speaking sensibilities)
leather, orange, fish, garlic and turpentine.
The two researchers found that the Se-
maq Beri used abstractterms forodours
86% of the time—about as often as they did
for colours, which was 80%. The Semelai
also used abstract colour descriptions at a
similar rate, namely 78% of the time. But
when it came to describing odours they re-
lied on abstraction on only 44% of occa-
sions, while resorting to analogies, such as
“banana” and “chocolate”, 56% of the time.
Moreover, as with Dr Majid’s earlier study
with the Jahai, the Semaq Beri more fre-
quently agreed with one another about
naming odours than did the Semelai.
Given these findings, Dr Majid and Dr
Kruspe argue that it is the hunting-and-
gathering way of life, rather than the use of
a particular language, that is crucial to the
use of abstractnames for odours. Presum-
ably, the business of surviving by eating
what the forest has to offer requires a more
discriminating use of the nostrils than is
needed for farming. 7Perception and languageScents and
sensibility
How well people can name sensations
depends on those sensations’ salience