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Survival in Space Unprotected Is Possible, Briefly (2008)

36 points by Thevet 11y ago

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
HCIdivision17 11y ago
This kind of illustrates that it's not that your blood boils or anything crazy like that, but rather that without external pressure, your body relies on your squishy flesh to hold the internal pressures in check. So you'll get a full-body hickey/swelling and the bends (though deep sea divers can, of course, suffer far worse since their internal pressure can be multiple atmospheres). If you've any exposed mucus membranes, expect them to off-gas and to start to freeze on the surface. But all that takes time to really set in, so you've got a minute or so before you're really hurt. By that time, your real problem is simply that you've stopped breathing, which turns out to be a big deal. Remember: vacuum is first and foremost an asphyxiant! (Re asphyxiant, here's my favorite story on the topic: http://www.sciforums.com/threads/vacuum-pockets-and-safety-nazis.41446/ http://www.sciforums.com/threads/vacuum-pockets-and-safety-n... )
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  RE your favourite story, I'm just waiting for someone with experience in this topic to point out here that vacuum pockets are actually a real thing under some conditions, and even maybe that those "safety nazis" were actually justified. Hanging out on HN I've seen many cases where something derided by people turns out to actually be true. :).
- artmageddon 11y ago
  > By that time, your real problem is simply that you've stopped breathing, which turns out to be a big deal. A really hypothetical scenario: but suppose for a moment an astronaut's is floating around, the suit has ripped open, oxygen within it is pretty much at nil, and unable to return in time. Would it be possible to bring a breathing apparatus(i.e. small oxygen tank) out to the astronaut to keep him/her breathing a bit longer?
  - prodigal_erik 11y ago
    You can live on a partial pressure of about 0.15 atm of oxygen. Less than that and your blood will lose oxygen as it passes through your lungs. So the tank works if the pressure is high enough.
- RogtamBar 11y ago
  >By that time, your real problem is simply that you've stopped breathing, which turns out to be a big deal. With some training holding your breath for 3 minutes is doable for anyone, and the record is something like 8-9 minutes..
  - davesque 11y ago
    According to the article, holding your breath in a vacuum is not wise.
  - HCIdivision17 11y ago
    You're right, but one of the main issues is that you probably don't have enough strength in your lip muscles and throat to keep the air in without outside pressure. A single ATM of pressure is easy to leak, and your body is undergoing some real nasty expansion problems; As the sibling commenter notes, too, holding your breath is likely dangerous, as your internal chest cavity may not be able to apply enough compressive force to hold the air in. (And microscopically your lung will try to inflate excessively, leading to internal bleeding, I think.) There's a really cool idea for a spacesuit that's basically just a fabric wet suit that's just really compressive (via electromuscles or cinched bands or w/e). That way your body gets the ability to hold onto the gas in your lungs without the risk of your lungs attempting to expand out your gut and throat. It's an interesting idea though: what if you could train your abdomen and chest to compress a lung full of air in a vacuum? Then you just gotta keep your mouth and nose shut somehow. (It'd be really difficult - it'd take a force like trying to inflate a car tire with your mouth. Possible, but seems hard.)
chromaton 11y ago
This is how the astronaut in 2001: A Space Odyssey manages to get back on board the main ship.
- rrss1122 11y ago
  To offer another sci-fi example, it's how two pilots of an experimental spacecraft in the TV series Stargate SG-1 were rescued when the spacecraft rapidly traveled away from Earth and locked them out of pretty much everything except ejecting from the craft. Their rescuers were waiting in a nearby spaceship to scoop them out of the vacuum of space.
civilian 11y ago
I remember reading an Arthur C. Clarke book where a space liner has lost their engines and their airlocks. The protagonist on the military rescue ship decides to do something drastic: blow up the space liner. They seal the people into groups of 20 in separate cabins, and then they detonate small charges to puncture each cabin at a time. Their ship is positioned right next to the liner, with utility cords leading straight to the airlock. Clarke took this opportunity to explain that you don't freeze and explode in space, losing oxygen is the main problem. But also for that reason--- don't hold your breath when you're about to be exposed to vacuum, that's just a good way to rupture your lungs from the pressure.
- curtis 11y ago
  This sounds like the end of Earthlight [1] (the novel, not the short story). However, it was the space liner rescuing the crew of the military ship in this case. The ability to evacuate the crew of the military ship without spacesuits is an important plot point, or at least a dramatic one. Anyway, Clarke was apparently convinced that humans could survive a brief exposure to vacuum at least as early as 1955. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthlight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthlight
curtis 11y ago
There was a notable incident in the 1960s where a NASA spacesuit technician named Jim LeBlanc survived an accidental (but brief) depressurization. There's a YouTube video describing the accident which includes film of the accident itself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO8L9tKR4CY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO8L9tKR4CY.
- Domenic_S 11y ago
  What a great video, thanks for the link.
Houshalter 11y ago
Im really disturbed by the scientists that tortured dozens of dogs and chimps in vacuums.
- seangrant 11y ago
  It's definitely a touchy subject and disturbing to the general populace, but such experiments are necessary for the advancement of the human race.
  - Pinatubo 11y ago
    I for one am glad to know that dogs in a vacuum spontaneously deficate. I suspect there is a vacuum that develops overnight in the corner of my living room.
    - davesque 11y ago
      Yeah. Now you don't have to blame the dog! :)
  - Luc 11y ago
    These animal experiments were done because they were convenient, not because there wasn't an alternative. Oooh, I realize, that 19th centure statement about this being 'necessary for the advancement of the human race' is just you trolling (or sarcasm?), and I fell for it. Doh!
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      It's interesting to think just where would we be if we could retroactively apply our current moral views on science to the past times. With microscopes, X-rays, MRIs and computer simulations we can do science without harming other creatures. But we couldn't do that even as recently as 100 years ago. Would we ever have medicine without thousand of years of animal testing? Hell, we know what is edible and what is not because in the past few thousand years people accidentally killed themselves by eating crap.
untilHellbanned 11y ago
The header takes up half of the page.
Oxydepth 11y ago
I think the movie Event Horizon got it right. For anybody who hasn't seen it, someone is ejected out into Space. He's saved within about a minute. Though, he definitely suffers internal bleeding and other damages, he survives.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Caution: Event Horizon is also one hell of a mind-fucking horror movie. It's not for the weak-minded. Liberate tuteme ex inferis. You have been warned.
  - to3m 11y ago
    I went to see Event Horizon in the cinema when it first came out, with a couple of schoolfriends. There was an oldish couple in front of us, maybe in their 50s, possibly expecting a repeat of 2001. Eventually the film finished, and we all got up, slightly dazed - couple included. The woman said to the man, with pursed lips - "Next time, I'm picking the film" :) The drive home was about 40 minutes, and my friends and I were silent the whole way. But I'm sure if I saw it again, it would seem adorably tame.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      I watched it on TV, late at night, as a kid. I remember barely being able to fall asleep out of fear, and I think it took a week for the effects of this movie to wear off. I'm older now and I've seen enough sad, scary and disrupting movies that it doesn't affect me anymore, but I'm pretty sure that if I tried to show it to my SO, I'd have my own Event Horizon right there in the apartment. EDIT: I also had the "next time I'm picking the movie" moment after I took my then-girlfriend to see Prometheus. The TED2023 trailer looked so cool and I didn't realize it's a prequel to Alien...
    - davesque 11y ago
      Lol. Yes. I remember doing the same when it came out. Went to see it when I was in high school with some friends. I felt literally physically exhausted (and dazed, as you describe) after I walked out of the theater. We were all expecting an interesting sci-fi movie, not a disturbing horror movie.
mrfusion 11y ago
Does this mean we might be ok on a 70 degree f [1] Mars with just a breathing mask? Especially if you're covering the mucus membranes. 1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Mars https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Mars

36 points by Thevet 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

This kind of illustrates that it's not that your blood boils or anything crazy like that, but rather that without external pressure, your body relies on your squishy flesh to hold the internal pressures in check. So you'll get a full-body hickey/swelling and the bends (though deep sea divers can, of course, suffer far worse since their internal pressure can be multiple atmospheres). If you've any exposed mucus membranes, expect them to off-gas and to start to freeze on the surface. But all that takes time to really set in, so you've got a minute or so before you're really hurt. By that time, your real problem is simply that you've stopped breathing, which turns out to be a big deal. Remember: vacuum is first and foremost an asphyxiant! (Re asphyxiant, here's my favorite story on the topic: http://www.sciforums.com/threads/vacuum-pockets-and-safety-nazis.41446/ http://www.sciforums.com/threads/vacuum-pockets-and-safety-n... )

TeMPOraL 11y ago
RE your favourite story, I'm just waiting for someone with experience in this topic to point out here that vacuum pockets are actually a real thing under some conditions, and even maybe that those "safety nazis" were actually justified. Hanging out on HN I've seen many cases where something derided by people turns out to actually be true. :).
artmageddon 11y ago
> By that time, your real problem is simply that you've stopped breathing, which turns out to be a big deal. A really hypothetical scenario: but suppose for a moment an astronaut's is floating around, the suit has ripped open, oxygen within it is pretty much at nil, and unable to return in time. Would it be possible to bring a breathing apparatus(i.e. small oxygen tank) out to the astronaut to keep him/her breathing a bit longer?
- prodigal_erik 11y ago
  You can live on a partial pressure of about 0.15 atm of oxygen. Less than that and your blood will lose oxygen as it passes through your lungs. So the tank works if the pressure is high enough.
RogtamBar 11y ago
>By that time, your real problem is simply that you've stopped breathing, which turns out to be a big deal. With some training holding your breath for 3 minutes is doable for anyone, and the record is something like 8-9 minutes..
- davesque 11y ago
  According to the article, holding your breath in a vacuum is not wise.
- HCIdivision17 11y ago
  You're right, but one of the main issues is that you probably don't have enough strength in your lip muscles and throat to keep the air in without outside pressure. A single ATM of pressure is easy to leak, and your body is undergoing some real nasty expansion problems; As the sibling commenter notes, too, holding your breath is likely dangerous, as your internal chest cavity may not be able to apply enough compressive force to hold the air in. (And microscopically your lung will try to inflate excessively, leading to internal bleeding, I think.) There's a really cool idea for a spacesuit that's basically just a fabric wet suit that's just really compressive (via electromuscles or cinched bands or w/e). That way your body gets the ability to hold onto the gas in your lungs without the risk of your lungs attempting to expand out your gut and throat. It's an interesting idea though: what if you could train your abdomen and chest to compress a lung full of air in a vacuum? Then you just gotta keep your mouth and nose shut somehow. (It'd be really difficult - it'd take a force like trying to inflate a car tire with your mouth. Possible, but seems hard.)

chromaton 11y ago

This is how the astronaut in 2001: A Space Odyssey manages to get back on board the main ship.

rrss1122 11y ago
To offer another sci-fi example, it's how two pilots of an experimental spacecraft in the TV series Stargate SG-1 were rescued when the spacecraft rapidly traveled away from Earth and locked them out of pretty much everything except ejecting from the craft. Their rescuers were waiting in a nearby spaceship to scoop them out of the vacuum of space.

civilian 11y ago

I remember reading an Arthur C. Clarke book where a space liner has lost their engines and their airlocks. The protagonist on the military rescue ship decides to do something drastic: blow up the space liner. They seal the people into groups of 20 in separate cabins, and then they detonate small charges to puncture each cabin at a time. Their ship is positioned right next to the liner, with utility cords leading straight to the airlock. Clarke took this opportunity to explain that you don't freeze and explode in space, losing oxygen is the main problem. But also for that reason--- don't hold your breath when you're about to be exposed to vacuum, that's just a good way to rupture your lungs from the pressure.

curtis 11y ago
This sounds like the end of Earthlight [1] (the novel, not the short story). However, it was the space liner rescuing the crew of the military ship in this case. The ability to evacuate the crew of the military ship without spacesuits is an important plot point, or at least a dramatic one. Anyway, Clarke was apparently convinced that humans could survive a brief exposure to vacuum at least as early as 1955. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthlight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthlight

curtis 11y ago

There was a notable incident in the 1960s where a NASA spacesuit technician named Jim LeBlanc survived an accidental (but brief) depressurization. There's a YouTube video describing the accident which includes film of the accident itself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO8L9tKR4CY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO8L9tKR4CY.

Domenic_S 11y ago
What a great video, thanks for the link.

Houshalter 11y ago

Im really disturbed by the scientists that tortured dozens of dogs and chimps in vacuums.

seangrant 11y ago
It's definitely a touchy subject and disturbing to the general populace, but such experiments are necessary for the advancement of the human race.
- Pinatubo 11y ago
  I for one am glad to know that dogs in a vacuum spontaneously deficate. I suspect there is a vacuum that develops overnight in the corner of my living room.
  - davesque 11y ago
    Yeah. Now you don't have to blame the dog! :)
- Luc 11y ago
  These animal experiments were done because they were convenient, not because there wasn't an alternative. Oooh, I realize, that 19th centure statement about this being 'necessary for the advancement of the human race' is just you trolling (or sarcasm?), and I fell for it. Doh!
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    It's interesting to think just where would we be if we could retroactively apply our current moral views on science to the past times. With microscopes, X-rays, MRIs and computer simulations we can do science without harming other creatures. But we couldn't do that even as recently as 100 years ago. Would we ever have medicine without thousand of years of animal testing? Hell, we know what is edible and what is not because in the past few thousand years people accidentally killed themselves by eating crap.

untilHellbanned 11y ago

The header takes up half of the page.

Oxydepth 11y ago

I think the movie Event Horizon got it right. For anybody who hasn't seen it, someone is ejected out into Space. He's saved within about a minute. Though, he definitely suffers internal bleeding and other damages, he survives.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
Caution: Event Horizon is also one hell of a mind-fucking horror movie. It's not for the weak-minded. Liberate tuteme ex inferis. You have been warned.
- to3m 11y ago
  I went to see Event Horizon in the cinema when it first came out, with a couple of schoolfriends. There was an oldish couple in front of us, maybe in their 50s, possibly expecting a repeat of 2001. Eventually the film finished, and we all got up, slightly dazed - couple included. The woman said to the man, with pursed lips - "Next time, I'm picking the film" :) The drive home was about 40 minutes, and my friends and I were silent the whole way. But I'm sure if I saw it again, it would seem adorably tame.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    I watched it on TV, late at night, as a kid. I remember barely being able to fall asleep out of fear, and I think it took a week for the effects of this movie to wear off. I'm older now and I've seen enough sad, scary and disrupting movies that it doesn't affect me anymore, but I'm pretty sure that if I tried to show it to my SO, I'd have my own Event Horizon right there in the apartment. EDIT: I also had the "next time I'm picking the movie" moment after I took my then-girlfriend to see Prometheus. The TED2023 trailer looked so cool and I didn't realize it's a prequel to Alien...
  - davesque 11y ago
    Lol. Yes. I remember doing the same when it came out. Went to see it when I was in high school with some friends. I felt literally physically exhausted (and dazed, as you describe) after I walked out of the theater. We were all expecting an interesting sci-fi movie, not a disturbing horror movie.

mrfusion 11y ago

Does this mean we might be ok on a 70 degree f [1] Mars with just a breathing mask? Especially if you're covering the mucus membranes. 1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Mars https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Mars