I can’t imagine I’d be a fun companion on a spaceship. But I don’t think I’d do anything to deserve getting tossed out an airlock. Still, if I do step over the line (eat the last Mintie? forget to use deodorant? leave the space toilet seat up?), I know I’d last a little while at least after eating vacuum.
But it would still suck.
HAHAHA! Actually, you don’t get sucked out an airlock, you get blown out one. Suck implies a force drawing you outward, but it’s the pressure of the air in the airlock that blows you out.
Hmmm. Now I see why they might throw me out.
Tip o’ the spacesuit helmet (literally in this case) to Peter Sagal.
August 18th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
The blow/suck thing is baloney. Whenever something gets sucked it’s the absence (or partial-absence) of matter in one area comparative to another area that is causing the motion.
You could argue that a little fragment of ice cube gets blown up the straw by the soda that is moving up to fill the vacuum I’ve created, but you would more often say that it is being sucked up.
Suck/blow are both always due to the same thing, a fluid moving from high pressure to low pressure!
August 18th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Blow and suck mean the same thing. Ask any prostitute.
I hope I didn’t just violate Phil’s comment policy.
August 18th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Are the muscles in and around your mouth strong enough to resist space trying to equalize the overpressure in your lungs? In otherwords, can you hold your breath in space? What about, ahem… other orifaces? Simple question I know, but I’ve never seen it come up in conversation so I genuinely don’t know the answer to that.
August 18th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
1 minute 29 seconds
Isn’t suck/blow one of those college party games?
August 18th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Shame on you for linking to a “sign me up” scam. The Randi wouldn’t like it…
August 18th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Ack..never noticed the link (dang this font type) but now I’m glad I didn’t. No sign ups for me. But I guess it answered my questions without having to sign up.
August 18th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Dagger – yes. A similar situation happens in scuba. One can easily hold their mouth closed while ascending such that you “busrt” your lungs. If you were in a space ship, I guess it would be at 1 atomosphere and the outside of your lungs would be at zero (and outside your mouth). This would be similar (mouth-wise) to breathing in air at 33 feet deep sea water and holding your breath while ascending to the surface. I am not sure if you can hold your mouth the whole time, but you can easily hold it enough to pop your lungs.
August 18th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
You don’t actually have to sign up to see your results. There’s a “No thanks, take me directly to my results” link (in much smaller font) at the bottom of the page that trys to make you register.
I was 1 minute 17 seconds as well. Oddly enough, I learned about exhaling before decompression from a Star Trek novel- of all the bizarre places to expunge a common misconception about space…
August 18th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
A minute even! Well, I’m screwed XD
August 18th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
One minute and 23 seconds… Plenty of time for folks to get annoyed with me and shove me out.
August 18th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
12 seconds longer than Phil…which just means 12 seconds of more pain. And I can’t help thinking of Callie on BSG…*shudder*
August 18th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
If it’s truly the air being BLOWN out the airlock that would cast you into space, what if you managed to hold on tight until all the air vacated. If you let go then, would you just float or would you still get SUCKED out.
August 18th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
I’m also at 1 minute 17 seconds. I’m sure that would seem like an eternity…
August 18th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
@Brian, you’d float unless another force acted upon your body. Push yourself towards the inner door so your unconscious (but hopefully not dead yet) body will be convienently located for rescuers.
August 18th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Does anyone know how they calculate this, and what the scientific basis is for the formula?
August 18th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
It looks like weight is one of the biggest factors. I’m guessing that’s based on insulation.
August 18th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Is that the same Peter Sagal who hosts Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me?
My number is 1:11. There’s something oddly comforting in the symmetry of that number.
August 18th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Intersting, holding your breath buys you an extra 12 seconds. I think I’ll take dying a quarter minute earlier over having my lungs explode in my chest.
August 18th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
I can’t find it now, but I think some article just got around that you will survive for a lot longer than you are conscious (IIRC ~ 15 s) – as the posted link claims – and that russians tested that on dogs.
IIRC the dogs puked, defecated and pissed themselves (and quickly lost consciousness), but could be revived if revisiting atmosphere pressure within 90 s. Seems our tissues can’t resist that pressure differential; as other comments note, it will simply be an example of “a fluid moving from high pressure to low pressure”.
August 18th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Well, as Bart Simpson said: “that blows and sucks at the same time!”
August 18th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Eh, I don’t think so. AFAIU the larynx, which is rather sturdy cartilage, will act as a shut one-way valve if you try to hold your breath, which is why your lungs burst. By exhaling the valve won’t be pressed shut.
Your mouth is just muscle and other soft tissue. It will likely go “thbbbbt”!
August 18th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
A silent scream.
August 18th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Wait, so if holding your breath bursts your lungs, wouldn’t it be better to NOT hold your breath? Wouldn’t bursting your lungs kill you sooner from the damage within your torso than running out of oxygen would?
August 18th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
To be precise, this is what I have heard, so the actual mechanics may be different. But it makes sense as in principle the strength of the tissue in your mouth is on the same order as the similar lung tissue membranes/muscles (modulo different thicknesses, of course), or your lungs would go pop when you hold your breath and press the lungs.
The lung membranes already works at a pressure differential, as AFAIU the inner membrane expands solely due to under pressure created when the ribcage expands, there is (usually) no actual tissue connection. So that membrane may look flimsy, but it is rather sturdy and well exercised/tested by everyday use.
August 18th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
1 minute, 35 seconds for me.
And I remember in Trek: TNG Data actually corrected Riker on the “blown out/sucked out” difference.
Riker: They’ve all been sucked out into space.
Data: Correction sir. Blown out.
(from the episode “The Naked Now” – I think the first time Wesley saved the ship. Grr. )
August 18th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Phil, Phil, Phil:
I am so surprised at you! Everyone knows there is no up or down in space, making it virtually impossible to “leave the space toilet seat up”.
Ladies, aren’t you paying attention?
August 18th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
I’m surprised no one has mentioned the hemorrhaging from all your exposed membranes, etc… That can’t be fun, either. (Bloody nose, eyes, capillaries bursting in your skin- good times.)
August 18th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
I’m guessing that capillaries might burst all over your body. If so, I’d like to coin the term “space hicky”, unless someone else beat me to it.
August 18th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Brian Hart said: I am so surprised at you! Everyone knows there is no up or down in space, making it virtually impossible to “leave the space toilet seat up”.
Ladies, aren’t you paying attention?
No need to change position of the toilet seat at all as you will miss the toilet anyway. Space wifes and space girlfriends will not be impressed by men’s urine evacuation skills.
August 18th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Kevin beat me to it. I was actually in the process of finding that clip on Youtube that I’ve seen before (actually I think it was a blooper reel of that scene). As we’ve seen, Data would have no problem being blown into space.
August 18th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
So wait… does a sail boat get sucked across the ocean? Now I’m all confoozled.
August 18th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
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August 18th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
I’d say there’s an infinite improbability that I would survive.
J/P=?
August 18th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Jose Says:
I’d like to coin the term “space hicky”, unless someone else beat me to it.
Didn’t that happen to someone in Alien?
The Chemist Says:
So wait… does a sail boat get sucked across the ocean?
Only in the Southern Hemisphere.
Brian Hart Says:
Everyone knows there is no up or down in space, making it virtually impossible to “leave the space toilet seat up”.
So, when you’ve had too much Space Gin or Rocket Bourbon, which way do you throw?
August 18th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
1:29! In your face!
August 18th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Isn’t suck/blow one of those college party games?
I think it’s called Skull and Bones society.
August 18th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
For that matter, you could say that matter can’t ever “pull” things, only push them, as someone “pulling” on a handle is just pushing from the inside of their hand.
But I don’t because it’s useful to have words like suck and pull.
And grow up you jokesters! Do your duty as a mature adult!
…hheheheheh…. duty….
August 18th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
What if you allowed most of the air to escape your lungs but then clamped it off at 2 or 3 psi? Could you stay conscious longer while avoiding the risk of lung damage?
Also – would it be easier to blink if you took eye drops with you?
Let’s debate the pros and cons of going out with a full bladder.
Pro: It’s natural reaction mass for your body’s built-in jet propulsion system. If you’re a man, it even comes with a steerable nozzle.
Con: In your panic, you might forget to open your fly.
August 18th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Whoo-hoo, 1:35 – is there a prize involved (other than being first one out the door)?
August 18th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
The usual distinction between blow and suck is based on where the pressure abnormality is. You suck through a straw by reducing the pressure in your mouth; you can also blow through a straw by increasing the pressure. The higher pressure in a space ship is the abnormality compared to space, thus you get blown out.
Wind is a slightly special case, since higher pressure in one area is matched by lower pressure in another; “blown” is kept from the days when people thought gods or spirits were actually blowing the wind.
Of course, though, tornadoes suck
August 18th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Phil:But I don’t think I’d do anything to deserve getting tossed out an airlock.
If you found yourself in the Star Wars universe, and look out to see Tie Fighter exploding complete with the sound you might remark on it and THEN they’d throw you out… But that’s a stretch.
August 18th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
@Kevin F.
I think you only get thrown out for complaining about the time it takes to complete the Kessel Run. Many people here would be in trouble.
August 18th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
@Kevin F.
Didn’t that happen to someone in Alien?
Noooo! It can’t be. I was so close to space hicky immortality.
August 18th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
I’m Batman.
And I can BREATHE in SPACE.
August 18th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Dave did quite well briefly in a vacuum in 2001. (One of the scary-yet-cool moments in the classic film.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfQJKBq9g64
Also a rare instance in a movie where we hear sounds only inside Dave’s pod but the outside vacuum is silent so no explosion heard when he blows the hatch. Its actually spookier!
And, you may recall, both the Jupiter ship and the pod are moving at enormous speed but in the same direction and in the same frame of reference so they seem motionless relative to each other. Thank you Stanley Kubrick!
August 18th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
I also got 1 minute 17 seconds. That means that if Phil and I ever got into a fight, we would fight with perfect symetry, throwing the exact same punches, and it would take forever.
August 18th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Makes me wonder how long Cally lasted after she got thrown out the airlock on BSG?
August 18th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
@Jose: I was thinking more along the lines of “all-over body hickey” when I wrote my last comment, but “space hickey” has a better ring to it.
August 18th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
1 min 41 sec!
I think Cally and Terrell were in vacuum for less than a minute. The raptor was waiting near by. I might have to find the BSG episode and time them!
I think no people got spaced in Alien although something did (I wouldn’t want to spoil the ending). Vacuum seemed to have no effect on it.
August 18th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Choosing these options:
Question No.:
1. Expel all the air from your lungs
2. 50-99 lbs (22-45 kg)
3. Child
4. Yes, a few times (Fainted)
5. Poor stamina – I never exercise
6. Yes (Asthma / Respiratory Problems)
Interestingly enough, that’s about 6 seconds of pure terror. I don’t know if that’s the lowest possible time, though.
Oh btw mine is 1 min 17 secs..
August 18th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
I got 1:23. My wife also got 1:23. Although our ages are simular, we answered most questions differently. I’m a bit of a jock, she works out a little sometimes. I weigh (ahem) a bit less. I’ve never fainted, she has. I exhaled, she inhaled (I’ll avoid the running controversy). I’m skeptical….
August 18th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Okay, so I came up with 1:41. Given that whatever catastrophic failure it was that exposed us to an absence of atmosphere probably can’t be rectified in under 2 minutes and I’m going to die just like the rest of you lightweights:
What could a person do to expire REALLY quickly in such a situation?
IOW, assuming survival is not an option here, what could I do to leave on my own terms FASTER than the lack of elements would do me?
August 18th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
I played with the web address and…… I could survice for 1 minute 5569 seconds in the vacuum of space.
August 18th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
There is an old SciFi short story where an interplanetary liner (yeah, right) is damaged and they need to transfer about thirty passengers to another ship. The crews have suits but not the passengers. They end up hyperventilating in enriched oxygen air with a final exhalation as they blow the hatch. The suited crews toss them over and cram them into another airlock. I think under those conditions they gave them almost 5 minutes before closing the hatch and repressurizing.
I think this would work. The hyperventilation blows off the CO2 (cutting the urge to breathe) and raises tissue O2 levels (reducing damage).
August 18th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
I seem to remember reading somewhere (Arthur C. Clarke springs to mind) that the first thing that would kill you in space would actually be intense sunburn (assuming you were not within the shadow of the Earth or Moon).
Can anyone verify this? How long can the human body last in pure unfiltered sunlight at one A.U. distance?
August 18th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
When I was a youngster my friends and I would have compatitions to see who could swim the furthest under water. We would hyperventilate to increase our endurance. Modern deep diving competitors use a simmiler technique to dive to incredible depths. The biggest danger apparently is blacking out just before reaching the surface. I do not know if they have quite figured out why the risk increases as the water pressure decreases. I do know a child almost drowned in a local pool doing the same thing we did as kids and the authorities were warning kids of the dangers of hyperventilating and submerging.
In a vaccume I think you would have to keep your eyes closed or your tears would evaporate. I would imagine your ear drums would also take a beating.
August 18th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
@John Paradox:
Actually according to the guide there is a probability of being rescued 2^267,709:1 against, hardly an infinite improbability…
Hey guys, my spacesuit is out of O2, do you think you could open the inner hatch to the airlock for me?
Guys…?
August 18th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Why don’t you all just take a stress pill and we’ll talk about this?
Daisy, Dayzeee…
August 18th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
CanadianLeigh: Possibly, the high pressure forces oxygen from the small amount of air still in the lungs into the blood?
A seldom known fact is that the body triggers breathing, not on the lack of oxygen in the blood, but the bloods acidity, which is related to the CO² concentration. So, if you breath, say, pure helium, you will feel perfectly normal, until you black out from lack of oxygen. If you are aware of what is happening, the first thing you notice is that you loose your sight (the retina requires a lot of oxygen), and, if you realize that and force yourself to take a breath (No O² in means not CO² out, so you don’t feel a need to breathe!!), you’ll be fine. If not, well, next step is eternal unconsciousness.
August 18th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Re divers: additionally, perhaps the lowering pressure allows that oxygen to devolve back into the lung’s air?
August 18th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
@RL,
No, not that episode, the one where Tori threw Cally out, thereby, ummm…. spoiler alert….
Killing her!
August 18th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
I read a book called (If I recall correctly) ‘The weapon’ where a bunch of folk were being trained up to be serious commandoes. One way they realised just how tough the training was going to be was when they transferred from a shuttle to a space station. Airlock begins to depressurise, which is a tad unnerving as they are not actually wearing space suits, airlock door opens, they see that they are still 5-10 feet from the recieving airlock and there is a figure floating out there (in a suit) holding up a sign saying “Move quickly”.
August 18th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Robbak is right. The diving phenomenon is referred to as “Shallow water blackout”.
I’m not the only one watching BG! I believe they got it right too! Cally froze, well, was blanketed in ice crystals anyway, almost immediately.
So one can look forward to the senses being somewhat numbed when you get your red space tan.
Wasn’t there a fantastic jump in 2001 a Space Oddysey?
August 19th, 2008 at 12:07 am
Robbak: A friend of mine who dives told me that when scuba divers want to dive really deep they use exotic gas mixes. Nitrogen is deadly under 130 feet so it is replaced with helium. Also the oxygen percentage is dropped the deeper you go. This is done by changing tanks at various levels during the decent and accent. I do not know the physiology behind this, however he told me oxygen becomes “poisonous” under high pressure. It probably has more to do with what you said about how the body regulates breathing. I’d rather use a submarine myself.
August 19th, 2008 at 12:23 am
“HAHAHA! Actually, you don’t get sucked out an airlock, you get blown out one. Suck implies a force drawing you outward, but it’s the pressure of the air in the airlock that blows you out.”
Does that mean we have to drop the word “suck” from the English language? Aren’t all cases of sucking really “pushing against reduced pressure”? And how in hell’s name do we keep this discussion clean?
August 19th, 2008 at 1:22 am
1 minute 47 seconds. Of course I would last less time than this as I would have to start whistling. Whistling would form a small jet opposite my direction of travel which would hopefully return me to the airlock, but if not would at least make my demise more enjoyable. I know that there is no sound in space, but If I made the motions it would be easier for them to dub in a tune on funniest home videos…
And Phil, by your definition are you saying that the only thing that truly sucks are the fundamental forces of gravity and electromagnetism?
August 19th, 2008 at 1:32 am
I don’t think anything like that happens in Alien.
But there are “up Vacuum Creek without a spacesuit” scenes in 2001, Outland and Event Horizon, just off the top of my head…
(One minute 29!)
August 19th, 2008 at 2:38 am
Oof, I got a sissy 48 seconds. That’s with:
1. Expel breath
2. 116-145 lbs.
3. Adult
4. Fainted a few times (only two, actually. I basically just get light headed when I don’t eat right. I’m not a pansy. I’m not.)
5. Poor stamina, never exercise
6. No respiratory problems
The address bar tells me I earned 8 points. Changing this manually, 0 points gives 0 seconds survival, 1 point gives 6 seconds, and so on with increments of 6 sec/1 point.
Watching the bar underneath the quiz while you’re taking it, you can see which answers move you farthest towards max.
Deep breath
250+
Adult
Never fainted
Excellent stamina
No respiratory problems
Tops out at 20 points for 1 minute, 59 seconds. Increasing the point count past there gives you 1 minute, 65 seconds etc. (score 1000 points and you get to survive for 1 minute, 5890 seconds!).
Also, of course you can leave the seat down in space. That’s how the enemy does it.
August 19th, 2008 at 4:33 am
I’m boned. 36 seconds. And that’s with expelling the air in my lungs.
August 19th, 2008 at 5:15 am
Actually this demonstrates how the everyday relative definition both suck and blow – in the space ship, the vacuum of space is the abnormality, so space shippers get sucked out. Until they passed the hull breach, whereupon they proceed to get blown out.
[Ah, finally I have stumbled upon what to replace nationalistic "astronauts" with - space shippers/crew! Thanks all.]
Deadly, as in causing a too incapacitating nitrous intoxication, right?
Btw, I don’t think they have figured out the mechanism behind nitrogen poisoning yet.
Answers.com:
Seems both nitrogen and oxygen acts as psychoactive compounds at high pressures.
August 19th, 2008 at 5:47 am
In space you don’t throw up, you throw out…
August 19th, 2008 at 6:01 am
That’s just great. I’d get 1:29 of gasping and flailing-around for air that isn’t there.
August 19th, 2008 at 7:06 am
@ Michael L. Oh! Yeah, I think she was out there way longer than a few minutes. At least that time, someone on Galactica noticed!
August 19th, 2008 at 7:15 am
The Hitchhiker’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.
August 19th, 2008 at 7:29 am
[...] How long can you survive in space? Courtesy of the Bad Astronomer: [...]
August 19th, 2008 at 8:18 am
Beverly and …Geordi? needed to depressurize the cargo hold and she advises them to hold their breath. As others have said this would probably pop your lungs. My SCUBA instructor says about 1/3 ATM is enough.
Elwood:
One of Clarke’s characters got a bad sunburn when they were building the communications satellite. One of John Varley’s characters, in The Golden Globe states that sunburn will kill you faster than the vacuum.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:27 am
@Ibid
I was wondering how long it would take before a Hitchhiker’s Guide reference popped up.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:33 am
1m17s as well. I wonder how many actual results there can be?
Well, it’s nice to know I can get back to the spaceship by flinging away the body of one of the 1m11s suckers.
August 19th, 2008 at 9:26 am
Here’s an interesting question: how many people have actually dies from this? Seems to be there was a russian soyuz flight that lost pressure explosively during re-entry, but other than that, has anyone ever actually died in the vaccuum of space?
August 19th, 2008 at 9:31 am
Oh, yeah, and then there’s the ridiculous scenes in “Total Recall” where people are out on the surface, sans suit, looking like those toys you squeeze and make the eyes/ears bug out, and 30 seconds later (after the machine creates an atmosphere) they’re up and walking around, talking… not even a headache, or the occasional fart due to difference in pressure…
August 19th, 2008 at 10:06 am
[...] Phil Plait did it, so I have to do it, too. [...]
August 19th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Andy Beaton:
Unless it’s random, then it’s just a matter of how many different ways you can answer the quiz. Each question has a different number of answers: 2, 7, 5, 3, 3, 2. Multiply them to get all the possible ways to fill out the quiz to get a maximum of 1260 possible different results. It’s likely much lower than that, since chances are some of the different times you’ll get from different questions will be the same, but that’s just an absolute max.
August 19th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Sounds like an unpleasant way to die. I would want to lose constiousness immediately, not in 15 seconds. That sounds a lot, considering you will have an eardrum pop, get dehydrated, bleed through all the capillaries, and not so nice stuff happening in other orifices… By the way, wouldn’t you also burn or freeze to death thanks to the temperature extreme of space? Maybe this quizz assumes space is room temperature.
August 19th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
There aren’t very many good ways to die. I wonder if you’d at least get a good albiet rather short view of the stars?
August 19th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Pulmonary embolism is the principal problem with holding your breath. A partial pressure equivalent to rising 4 feet in water, which is about 2 PSI, differential between air pressure inside the lungs and the pressure outside, can force air bubbles into the space between the lung and the lungs surrounding membrane . It can also force air bubbles directly into the pulmonary artery, which might kill one a bit faster. It had occurred to me that people who are able to survive w/o supplemental oxygen atop Mt. Everest, with a partial pressure of O2 about half that at sea level, might be able to survive breathing pure O2 in vacuum w/o a pressure suit, though they might not be able to perform useful work.
Partial pressure of O2 at sea level is 21% of normal atmospheric pressure, or about 2.7 PSI.
GAry 7
August 19th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Another note: VACUUM HAS NO TEMPERATURE,,,
GAry 7
August 19th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
[...] Vi primeiro aqui. [...]
August 19th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
This page at NASA says that hemorrhaging / freezing wouldn’t really be as much of a problem as, well, suffocation. It also says that holding your breath is a bad idea.
Another interesting bit of data is what happened to Joseph Kittinger’s hand when his suit glove had a breach during his ascent for the highest parachute jump. Which is nothing, really… he couldn’t feel it after he landed but it was fine by the next day.
August 20th, 2008 at 12:54 am
With hyperventilation, I endured faintness after 5 seconds and held my breath for a wimpy 47 seconds.
Without hyperventilation, I endured faintness after 10 seconds and held my breath for a limp 34 secons.
Seesh, I once could hold a note for forty beats, 2/2 time.
190lbs
bronchitis as long as I smoke
I smoke
little exercises (mostly at work).
So, I wouldn’t suffer in space that long, then.
Is the moral of this, be careful with whom you rocket into space?
I’ll stay on earth, thanks. No worries about vacuum.
August 20th, 2008 at 6:12 am
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August 20th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
@ Gary Ansorge:
Of course it has, as everything else that interacts with matter. Vacuum consists of all fields, and fields have temperature as observable with a thermometer (i.e. interacting with matter). As it happens, cosmological vacuum has the temperature of the microwave background radiation.
In fact, there was a recent thread here on the subject.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:55 am
Space isn’t a vacuum, at least not a perfect one. There’s a lot of gas out there, although it’s not very dense. There are many definitions of temperature (e.g., brightness temperature and spin temperature), but they don’t agree in systems that aren’t in thermodynamic equilibrium (like the interstellar medium). The ISM is never cooler than about 10K, though most areas are much hotter (~5000K is considered just “warm”), though as Torbjörn Larsson points out the (brightness) temperature can never drop below that of the CMB (2.7K).
August 21st, 2008 at 5:50 am
This page at NASA says that hemorrhaging / freezing wouldn’t really be as much of a problem as, well, suffocation. It also says that holding your breath is a bad idea.This is SO great! Awesome information.
August 23rd, 2008 at 8:32 am
I’m in the 1:17 group, too. But hey, there are many wonderful things you can do in 77 seconds: watch your whole life roll out before your eyes, for example. I’m 37 years old, so that would mean roughly 175 days each second. That’s what I would call fast forward.
Of those 77s, I’d be watching myself eat 5s, on the train 3s, walk 4s, messing around with computers 25s and asleep 26s. The remaining 14s ain’t none of anybodies business.
September 1st, 2008 at 8:13 am
A little late for the discussion but someone suffers a “space hicky” in the movie “Event Horizon”.
And doesn’t Tim Robbins get that intense sunburn thing in some movie? Can’t remeber which one but its something about a mission to Mars…
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:46 am
I had a middle school science teacher who would always say “Nothing sucks; everything blows.”