Comments on: Comments on 9609

Post number 9609

brownpau — Thu, 23 Aug 2001 20:27:21 -0800

Just FYI, it's entirely possible for a human to survive exposure to the vacuum of space for a limited time without any permanent damage -- as long as you expel all the breath from your lungs to avoid an embolism. Horrifying scenes of sudden explosive decompression or immediate freezing are, as far as I can tell, a myth. (In other words, Mission to Mars got it wrong, 2001 got it mostly right. But that's no surprise now, is it?) Link via BadAstronomy. Love that site.

By: brownpau

brownpau — Thu, 23 Aug 2001 20:29:09 -0800

Just something to remember if you ever get stuck in an "Event Horizon" airlock situation. ;)

By: VeGiTo

VeGiTo — Thu, 23 Aug 2001 20:39:05 -0800

Actually, I remember a scene in Mission to Mars where there were two of them who had to float a short distance in vacuum, and the guy told the girl to exhale. They survived (that scene).

By: geoff.

geoff. — Thu, 23 Aug 2001 20:39:38 -0800

If nothing else you'd get a nice even tan from being exposed to all those kooky light waves/particles.

By: Kikkoman

Kikkoman — Thu, 23 Aug 2001 20:46:41 -0800

As I remember, there's an Arthur C. Clarke story about this entitled "The Vacuum Breather's Club" or some such. Clarke goes into rather nice detail about all the various physiological things that happen in this sort of extreme situation, and it leaves you with a new respect for the toughness of a human body. (I read it long before seeing the movie "Totall Recall" and I couldn't help laughing at the totally overblown decompression scenes where people's eyes literally pop out of their heads.)

By: PWA_BadBoy

PWA_BadBoy — Thu, 23 Aug 2001 21:23:05 -0800

I'd rather forget that sad excuse of a movie called Mission to Mars altogether.

By: elle

elle — Thu, 23 Aug 2001 21:30:13 -0800

saw that depicted in last year's titan a.e.

By: graytopia

graytopia — Thu, 23 Aug 2001 21:41:18 -0800

I happen to like that movie Mission to Mars....

By: whatnotever

whatnotever — Thu, 23 Aug 2001 22:15:45 -0800

Event Horizon? This Event Horizon? Dear me. I thought that no one else had seen that... Rather, I hoped that no one else had seen that. A friend and I were looking through the rental listings to figure out what to watch. I saw Event Horizon. I, being a geek, thought, "Hey, it's sci-fi! I like sci-fi!" No, I had never heard of it before. Alas, what seemed at first to be sci-fi turned into a pointless, disgusting, "shocking," thriller-type-thing. Dimension of Pure Evil, my ass...

By: whatnotever

whatnotever — Thu, 23 Aug 2001 22:20:39 -0800

Oh, sorry, off-topic there. Um, yeah... Vacuum sucks. Uh... Seriously, though, mightn't you get the bends or some such? How would it be different than surfacing from a deep dive too quickly? Hm, I suppose (1-0) atm is much less than ([deep-sea pressure]-1) atm? Ah well, I'm sure I'll get some more info on this if I'm ever in a situation where it might be useful.

By: obiwanwasabi

obiwanwasabi — Thu, 23 Aug 2001 22:23:54 -0800

Time to update my Guide: The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy says that if you hold a lungful of air you can survive in the total vacuum of space for about thirty seconds. However it goes on to say that what with space being the mind boggling size it is the chances of getting picked up by another ship within those thirty seconds are two to the power of two hundred and sixty-seven thousand seven hundred and nine to one against.

By: elle

elle — Thu, 23 Aug 2001 23:36:39 -0800

How would it be different than surfacing from a deep dive too quickly? because it's a limited amount of time. about half a minute says the site.

By: dong_resin

dong_resin — Fri, 24 Aug 2001 00:53:52 -0800

I've lived in Florida for like, 10 years, now. The cold vacuum of space is my bitch. I could do space time standing on my head.

By: skallas

skallas — Fri, 24 Aug 2001 01:43:25 -0800

Event Horizon? This Event Horizon? Oh its terrible, no disagreement there. But anyone else noticed that imdb.com has lately become breast central?

By: ewagoner

ewagoner — Fri, 24 Aug 2001 07:19:45 -0800

How would it be different than surfacing from a deep dive too quickly? The bends is caused by breathing air under pressure, and having that pressurized gas decompress in your bloodstream. Deep skindivers breathe their air at surface pressure, dive to incredible depths, and then surface again as fast as you please. The bends can't get them. This is more akin to our lucky astronaut.

By: aramaic

aramaic — Fri, 24 Aug 2001 08:25:14 -0800

I like the NASA bit about the guy whose last conscious memory was the water on his tongue starting to boil...

By: samsara

samsara — Fri, 24 Aug 2001 08:35:37 -0800

So if the bends are caused by nitrogen being released from tissue. I would think that a gradual exposure to a vaccum state would be roughly the same as surfacing water (considering that you wouldn't be holding your breath the whole time). For some reason, I can't get that scene from Total Recall out of my head now.