Exposure to the vacuum of space: How long would you remain conscious? Or alive?

[Souper]

Would it be painful, or would you freeze?

[DaveofDefeat]

[Tex_NL]

The link above mentiones an incident in 1965. To see what actually happened check out this clip: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1cb_1275963881

[Nuke]

i think last time i looked into it many of the sources say you loose consciousness after about 10 seconds. however it is thought that if you were retrieved quickly enough you would survive many minutes of exposure. i really dont want to get my shovel.

[Motokid600]

I cant imagine a worse death. Nor a scarier death.. just imagine your craft peeling away around you and you get spaced. There was one instance when they were testing and developing the suits for the Apollo program that the suit lost pressure in a vacuum chamber. I forget the details, but he was exposed to a near vaccum iirc for a good 30 seconds before the chamber was brought back up to a tolerable pressure for help to get in. Dude got back up on his feat... no problems other then pain in his ears.

The human body is... surprisingly durable.

Here it is.

Jim Lablonk.

Lol the fall looked like it hurt so much worse.

Edited April 20, 2014 by Motokid600

[KASASpace]

He actually came back to work the very next day.

A good answer to the OP's question is provided

Skip to about 8:55.

[lajoswinkler]

There's absolutely no reason why would anyone freeze, unless we're talking about days spent in vacuum.

The pain depends on the speed of the pressure falling. If it's explosive decompression (LeBlanc's case wasn't explosive), soft tissue damage would occur and that's painful. The slower the pressure loss is, the less unpleasant it is.

At low enough rates, clinical euphoria occurs because CO2 is not building up in your body so it can not cause carotid sinus to push the brain into panic state, and low partial pressure of oxygen induces something like a buzzed joy, but it's not actually pleasant. Sensory disturbances occur. Tingling of the skin, buzzing in ears, muscles stop obeying...

Don't remember it's just 1 atm of difference. That isn't a lot.

[WestAir]

Is it true that, unlike with other forms of suffocation/hypoxia, in a vacuum if the subject isn't returned to survivable pressures within about half a minute survivability is improbable?

[78stonewobble]

There's absolutely no reason why would anyone freeze, unless we're talking about days spent in vacuum.

The pain depends on the speed of the pressure falling. If it's explosive decompression (LeBlanc's case wasn't explosive), soft tissue damage would occur and that's painful. The slower the pressure loss is, the less unpleasant it is.

At low enough rates, clinical euphoria occurs because CO2 is not building up in your body so it can not cause carotid sinus to push the brain into panic state, and low partial pressure of oxygen induces something like a buzzed joy, but it's not actually pleasant. Sensory disturbances occur. Tingling of the skin, buzzing in ears, muscles stop obeying...

Don't remember it's just 1 atm of difference. That isn't a lot.

As far as I've been able to read up on it the biggest risk to quick decompression would be damage to the lungs and airways. Supposedy it might not be possible to exhale quickly enough to avoid it.

Beyond that... wouldn't the only real difference in survival length between drowning and vacuum be, that in drowning you might have access to some air in your lungs yet, in vacuum (or atleast an explosive decompression) you would allmost instantly be down to the oxygen thats in your blood allready. And if you're at that point whether it's by drowning or vacuum... then you won't survive long.

[luizopiloto]

get a syringe, without a needle, fill 1/3 of it with water, cover the tip with a finger and pull the plunger... water will boil because or the negative pressure... now imagine your blood doing this...

[lajoswinkler]

Is it true that, unlike with other forms of suffocation/hypoxia, in a vacuum if the subject isn't returned to survivable pressures within about half a minute survivability is improbable?

It depends on your body fitness, but generally speaking, a minute... minute and a half... Don't expect more. If you aren't very fit, I'd say it's less than a minute. If you have some illness, it could be down to half a minute.

As far as I've been able to read up on it the biggest risk to quick decompression would be damage to the lungs and airways. Supposedy it might not be possible to exhale quickly enough to avoid it.

If it's explosive decompression (your orbital capsule door blows open), then your eardrums would pop and bleed (and boil into pink foam), your vocal apparatus would be damaged by the sudden rush of air, you'd probably get pneumothorax and there'd be significant damage to your intestines and pulmonary diaphraghm.

Beyond that... wouldn't the only real difference in survival length between drowning and vacuum be, that in drowning you might have access to some air in your lungs yet, in vacuum (or atleast an explosive decompression) you would allmost instantly be down to the oxygen thats in your blood allready. And if you're at that point whether it's by drowning or vacuum... then you won't survive long.

If the decompression is slow enough, let's say loss of pressure in few seconds so that your soft tissues don't freak out, the damage isn't only due to asphyxia. The lungs' alveoli have surfactants on their insides and are very moist. Your lungs would fill with foam. After a while, oedema is inevitable.

get a syringe, without a needle, fill 1/3 of it with water, cover the tip with a finger and pull the plunger... water will boil because or the negative pressure... now imagine your blood doing this...

Blood won't boil because the arteries and the veins are sturdy enough to hold it in place. It's just 1 atmosphere of difference. We aren't made of jelly.

For that experiment, you need hot water. If you use cold tap water, you'll see gas bubbles, but lots of them would be dissolved air, and not boiling. If you boil water at 100°C and cool it down to 80°C for the experiment, you'll successfully purge out the gases.

Also, boiling blood in vacuum would create foam.

[Moar Boosters]

There's plenty of gas inside your lower intestine, and that's going to expand rapidly. Fortunately your lower intestine is has a built in pressure release valve, so if you do manage to get back into the spacecraft you'll be okay, but you're going to need new underwear.

[lajoswinkler]

There's plenty of gas inside your lower intestine, and that's going to expand rapidly. Fortunately your lower intestine is has a built in pressure release valve, so if you do manage to get back into the spacecraft you'll be okay, but you're going to need new underwear.

Only if it's close to the rectum, or in the rectum itself. The gas in other parts will not be able to escape. Bloating and possible perforations will occur.

[HeadHunter67]

The fact that you'll need new underwear probably has more to do with the terror of being spaced, than with any actual physiological response.

[TheExplosionist]

1 minute or so.

[vger]

Dang, and to think all of this time these weird moments in sci-fi where folks have actually had to temporarily space themselves for some reason... are actually possible.

[Endersmens]

I thought i read somewhere that you would freeze instantly and your eyes would crystalize or something. But you're saying that wouldn't happen? I always thought space was insta-death. So like in gravity during Stone's oxygen deprived dream, when Kowalski opens the airlock, she actually could've survived that?

[Umlüx]

you would survive, yes. but naturally you would hold your breath in reflex, and that would damage your lungs.

so if you are ever in space and take a hitchhiker with you, just close your eyes and breathe out before opening the door to let him in

[lajoswinkler]

I thought i read somewhere that you would freeze instantly and your eyes would crystalize or something. But you're saying that wouldn't happen? I always thought space was insta-death. So like in gravity during Stone's oxygen deprived dream, when Kowalski opens the airlock, she actually could've survived that?

Why would you freeze? Your body has lots of heat inside and it takes some time before that heat is removed in sufficient quantities so that your temperature drops below the freezing point of intercellular fluid which is somewhat below 0°C.

The moisture on your eyes would evaporate rather quickly in the first minute, later the capillaries would lose their elasticity and burst, spilling foamy flood below and on conjuctiva and making your eyes look something like this.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Human_eye_showing_subconjunctival_hemorrhage.jpg

Again, the speed of pressure loss is critical when discussing this. Explosive decompression yields more damage. After you die, the ice would slowly sublimate and cause shrinkage of soft tissues until you look like a fresh mummy, desiccated. Your eyeballs would sink in like a dried up jellyfish after a week or so.

Yes, Stone could've survived that, but it wouldn't look so peaceful (it hurts), and there'd be more fog than it was shown in the scene.

[Yoha]

In regards to the loss of heat, it is really slow, since there are virtually no particles to exchange energy with. You would mainly lose heat through radiation (all matter emit some radiation depending on its temperature, making it lose heat), but it is a slow process.

[FREEFALL1984]

People keep saying its only one atmosphere of difference, might be worth noting that the "one atmosphere" is the most important one, the difference between negative and positive pressure is quite big. in fact there isn't a pump on earth that can produce a perfect vacuum in fact even existence of a perfect vacuum is questionable.

[christok]

Slow depressurisation resulted in cardiac arrest within approximately 30 seconds during Soyuz 11.

[lajoswinkler]

People keep saying its only one atmosphere of difference, might be worth noting that the "one atmosphere" is the most important one, the difference between negative and positive pressure is quite big. in fact there isn't a pump on earth that can produce a perfect vacuum in fact even existence of a perfect vacuum is questionable.

"Only 1 atm" in regards to the immediate mechanical effects upon the human body.

The fact there isn't possible to make a perfect vacuum on Earth is not relevant here. The difference between 0.01 atm and vacuum is nonexistent for our physiology.

[FREEFALL1984]

"Only 1 atm" in regards to the immediate mechanical effects upon the human body.

The fact there isn't possible to make a perfect vacuum on Earth is not relevant here. The difference between 0.01 atm and vacuum is nonexistent for our physiology.

However if we evolved to live in 2 atm, and suddenly had to live in 1 atm, we would probably be fine, a little short of breath but otherwise fine same works the other way, if I was suddenly exposed to 2 atm I would be just dandy, ergo, the difference between 0 atm and 1 atm is much greater than the difference between 1 atm and 2 atm.

[lajoswinkler]

However if we evolved to live in 2 atm, and suddenly had to live in 1 atm, we would probably be fine, a little short of breath but otherwise fine same works the other way, if I was suddenly exposed to 2 atm I would be just dandy, ergo, the difference between 0 atm and 1 atm is much greater than the difference between 1 atm and 2 atm.

We would be fine for a while, but not for long. As long as the partial pressure of oxygen is above some level, you'll be fine, so you can breathe 100% oxygen at very low pressure (I think around 0.15 atm) and you'll be fine.

Decrease the pressure of regular air to 0.15 atm and you die.