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 cas

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