Survival in Space Unprotected is Possible
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Survival in Space Unprotected is Possible
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Re: Survival in Space Unprotected is Possible
#2A famous scene in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey showed this. (The actor, Keir Dullea, almost was badly injured in the shot showing him entering the spaceship airlock without his helmet on, by the way.) But as the article points out, such survival is only
"for at least a couple of minutes. Not that you would remain conscious long enough to rescue yourself, but if your predicament was accidental, there could be time for fellow crew members to rescue and repressurize you with few ill effects."
So be sure to practice a buddy system if you are going into outer space without full protective gear on at all times. There's a reason that the full title of the article submitted here is "Survival in Space Unprotected Is Possible--Briefly."
Re: Survival in Space Unprotected is Possible
#3A famous scene in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey showed this. (The actor, Keir Dullea, almost was badly injured in the shot showing him entering the spaceship airlock without his helmet on, by the way.) But as the article points out, such survival is only "for at least a couple of minutes. Not that you would remain conscious long enough to rescue yourself, but if your predicament was accidental, there could be t…
2 minutes isn't much time to accomplish anything in a space suit. Your buddy needs to recognize what's happened, get to you, drag you into the airlock, and repressurize the airlock. Unless this happens directly next to the airlock door, I think you're done for.
Re: Survival in Space Unprotected is Possible
#4Explosive decompression won't happen in space, under normal circumstances. It is a thing that can happen, but it requires a drop larger than 1atm -> 0atm to overcome the strength of human skin. People have literally exploded from a pressure drop, but they were deep-sea divers in a decompression chamber that lost integrity and went from 9atm -> 1atm[1], a drop 8x larger than going from sea-level atmospheric pressure to vacuum.
From the article, it sounds like some of the symptons resemble "the bends" divers have when they surface too quickly. The cause of the bends is the change in pressure no longer being sufficient to keep the nitrogen dissolved in your blood, dissolved in your blood. Bubbles in blood veins are bad news.
Pretty much all of the issues with vacuum have to do with liquids becoming gases, and unsealed gases wanting to disperse. I have to imagine it's goddamn weird feeling the water evaporate off your eyeballs.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin#Diving_bell_acci...
Re: Survival in Space Unprotected is Possible
#5A famous scene in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey showed this. (The actor, Keir Dullea, almost was badly injured in the shot showing him entering the spaceship airlock without his helmet on, by the way.) But as the article points out, such survival is only "for at least a couple of minutes. Not that you would remain conscious long enough to rescue yourself, but if your predicament was accidental, there could be t…
2 minutes isn't much time to accomplish anything in a space suit. Your buddy needs to recognize what's happened, get to you, drag you into the airlock, and repressurize the airlock. Unless this happens directly next to the airlock door, I think you're done for.
Or patch the hole, if there is a hole. But your points is valid that its not a lot of time.
Re: Survival in Space Unprotected is Possible
#6The lack of oxygen is the biggest problem I'd gather:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTNX6mr753w (hypoxia in an altitude chamber from "how to kill a a human being" documentary)
I guess radiation exposure is another big one.
Re: Survival in Space Unprotected is Possible
#7What the article fails to mention is that space is cold. Really, really cold averaging -454.81 Fahrenheit[1] making concerns about oxygen or water pressure irrelevant. The article should have been called "Survival in Vacuum Unprotected Possible."
1 - http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980301b....
Re: Survival in Space Unprotected is Possible
#8What the article fails to mention is that space is cold. Really, really cold averaging -454.81 Fahrenheit[1] making concerns about oxygen or water pressure irrelevant. The article should have been called "Survival in Vacuum Unprotected Possible." 1 - http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980301b....
Space is for all practical purposes a vacuum, thus the only cooling effect would be by radiation, given that the body wouldn't be in contact with anything around it, as opposed to what happens on the ground where it is surrounded by air or water in the sea. In these conditions, the change in temperature takes a long time.
As stated in the linked article:
"If we put a thermometer in darkest space, with absolutely nothing around, it would first have to cool off. This might take a very very long time. Once it cooled off, it would read 2.7 Kelvin."
So, the vacuum really is the main concern. You'd be long dead before you start getting cold.
Re: Survival in Space Unprotected is Possible
#9What the article fails to mention is that space is cold. Really, really cold averaging -454.81 Fahrenheit[1] making concerns about oxygen or water pressure irrelevant. The article should have been called "Survival in Vacuum Unprotected Possible." 1 - http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980301b....
How does vacuum (the absence of matter) have a temperature?
Re: Survival in Space Unprotected is Possible
#10Yarchive comes to help.
http://yarchive.net/space/science/man_in_vacuum.html
There has been some real quality writing by certain individuals in the sci.space.* newsgroups about this and many other subjects (many of which are popular myths). You can learn a lot if you're interested in this kind of stuff.