
What happens to an unprotected human body in space? - spoon16
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970603.html
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mmaunder
"...his last conscious memory was of the water on his tongue beginning to
boil."

Reality is so much cooler than fiction. I've read just about everything
Clarke, Heinlein and Asimov have written among many other physics sci-fi
authors and none of them thought of that one.

~~~
timf
Apparently this happened at Johnson Space Center in a vacuum, so the
temperature would be high enough to make that happen with the reduced
atmospheric pressure (see the chart at [1]). The temperature in space is far,
far colder, I don't see how this could happen.

[1] <http://www.iapws.org/faq1/boil.htm>

EDIT: According to the replies at [2], the retained heat of ejected astronaut
urine is enough to first cause boiling but that heat runs out quickly and you
get ice crystals.

[2] <http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen01/gen01060.htm>

~~~
Avshalom
Well as far as spit on the tongue goes, any water that doesn't boil off
remains in contact with the tongue/cheeks, conduction being way faster that
radiation at 37c any spit that did freeze due to evaporative cooling would
thaw out again very quickly.

It's different for urine which lacks the continual heat source. If you had a
mouthful of water, instead of a thin sheet of spit, you'd likely end up with
an ice cube for a while.

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RyanMcGreal
A bigger worry is the improbability of having another ship arrive to pick you
up within 30 seconds.

~~~
dhs
Don't panic, and a ship powered by an infinite improbability drive will pop
up. Happens all the time...

~~~
jrockway
So that's what that tunnel of light is...

~~~
rationalbeaver
Don't forget your towel.

~~~
electromagnetic
Damn, left it in the dryer!

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bjelkeman-again
"He remained conscious for about 14 seconds, which is about the time it takes
for O2 deprived blood to go from the lungs to the brain."

Why was that? Does the low pressure force oxygen out of the blood in the lungs
and thereby having oxygen "free" blood arriving in the brain? If you hold your
breath you can easily hold it for a minute without loosing consciousness. So
the low pressure must be actively taking oxygen out of the blood, otherwise I
can't see that you would loose consciousness in 15 seconds.

How long did it take for Dave Bowman to exit the pod and pressurize the
airlock? :)

~~~
tjmc
There have been a couple of cases where crews on business jets were very
quickly incapacitated after a loss of cabin pressure most famously the
aircraft of golfer Paine Stewart. Unfortunately, unconsciousness does seem to
occur pretty fast. Supplemental O2 wasn't used in that case, despite it likely
being close to hand.

~~~
jrockway
Also commercial jets: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522>

(It's a little embarrassing to count how many people have died because pilots
have intentionally turned off power to warning systems that were warning of
them of an actual problem. Here's another one:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Airlines_Flight_255>. Same digits --
freaky.)

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metamemetics
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexey_Leonov>

> _On March 18, 1965, became the first human to conduct a space walk._

> _At the end of the spacewalk, Leonov's spacesuit had inflated in the vacuum
> of space to the point where he could not re-enter the airlock. He opened a
> valve to allow some of the suit's pressure to bleed off, and was barely able
> to get back inside the capsule._

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neonak
Why the boiling?

~~~
by
In a gas the molecules are moving around with lots of space between them
without much interaction. Some quickly, some slowly, all in different
directions. Occasionally they collide and bounce off each other, or more
rarely they may temporarily form weak (liquid) bonds with each other until a
fast molecule hits them and breaks them apart.

In a liquid the molecules (which are indistinguishable from gas molecules of
course if you looked at them individually) are moving much slower and form and
re-form weak (liquid) bonds with the molecules near them. But still there are
some moving faster and others more slowly and they are going in random
directions.

Now think about the surface where the liquid meets the gas. There are some gas
molecules that plunge into the liquid and become part of the liquid and there
are some liquid molecules moving fast enough to escape from the liquid,
breaking all their weak (liquid) bonds, and become part of the gas. The liquid
surface at a molecular scale will not be a nice flat surface. It will be a
complex seething bubbling thing with droplets and molecules leaving and
rejoining the liquid. If we heat the liquid, make the molecules move faster,
more of them will be moving fast enough to escape from the liquid. Anyway, if
there are more molecules going from the gas to the liquid we say the gas is
condensing, and if there are more going the other way the liquid is
evaporating. Now think what would happen if we take away all the gas molecules
- put the liquid into a vacuum. There will no molecules returning to the
liquid, only liquid molecules becoming gas. Conversely, if we compressed the
gas above the liquid we would get more gas molecules going into the liquid.

I think that's how it works.

~~~
knieveltech
Straight out of Feynman's lectures. Well said.

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petercooper
<http://www.astronomycast.com/space-flight/ep-121-spacesuits/>

Just because it's entertaining, the presenters are awesome, and you get to
learn a lot of cool stuff (and they cite the link in question, too).

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whatwhatwhat
This article just leaves me wanting to ask more questions...

~~~
_delirium
Same here, and oddly I seem unable to turn up a good book passage or
scientific paper on the subject (maybe it's just that my Google Books and
Scholar keywords are bad?). Surely _someone_ , somewhere, must've written a
review article with a title like, "The Effects of a Vacuum on the Human Body",
providing a nice survey of the known facts?

The closest I can find is a 1974 paper reviewing the effects of local pressure
reductions, e.g. placing someone's arm in a low-pressure chamber, or applying
high suction to a wound. Unfortunately, doesn't seem to be available online,
but here's the first page:
<http://physrev.physiology.org/cgi/pdf_extract/54/3/566>

~~~
whatwhatwhat
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_pressure_wound_therapy>

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jarin
Sounds like your lacrimal fluid would boil off, but maybe if you keep blinking
you might be able to operate the airlock handle when jumping between airlocks?

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pclark
Just like in Event Horizon (really)

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coderdude
In Event Horizon your eyeballs bleed. You start going into convulsions as your
veins swell and everything is getting sucked out of you. That article made it
sound kind of peaceful, provided you blew the air out of your lungs. Which,
now that I think about it, is probably what you are referring to (exhaling all
the air from your lungs).

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sown
Going from 1 ATM to 0 doesn't kill you but going from 9 ATM to 1 will

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin#Diving_bell_acci...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin#Diving_bell_accident)

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johnohara
My guess is the parachute record still stands. 19.5 miles is not quite 10% the
minimum altitude of the space shuttle.

Then you jump and wait for the feeling to come back in your right arm.

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Myrth
"and animal experiments confirm"

bastards...

~~~
ascuttlefish
It does seem a bit cruel, to be honest.

~~~
ars
Not if you anesthetize the animals first.

