Strange but True: Survival in Space Unprotected Is Possible--Briefly

This is absolute nonsense. Even if a human could survive vacuum conditions, the 3 degrees Kelvin of space would kill you pretty quick. The science is sound but the write up is just plain wrong.

Hi Roger,

I think the gist of the article was specifically aimed at vacuum exposure and not other factors such as temperature, etc.

It was interesting that dogs always survived up to 90 seconds of vacuum conditions and chimpanzees survived up to 3.5 minutes of exposure.

It does, at least, kill the various scenarios that one sees in the movies.

-John

Well, it's time for me to eat some humble pie. I apologize to the author of this article for my statement "This is absolute nonsense", because it turns out it isn't.

You see, my whole thing was the temperature. I just didn't believe a human could survive long in 3 Kelvin. What I was forgetting is that there is almost no molecules in space (thus vacuum) and so heat transfer through molecular collisions doesn't happen. That leaves only radiant heat transfer, which is a much much slower way of transferring heat. In other words, although space is very cold, it takes a long time for things in space to cool down. In retrospect, that's a good thing, since the Earth would have a much lower thermal equilibrium if that wasn't the case.

Cosmic Radiation is more of a long term effect, so really, the vacuum is the major issue. That's exactly what the article discusses. I do believe the article would have been much better had it opened with an explanation of why vacuum is the key consideration for surviving in space, but regardless I was flat out wrong in my statement "This is absolute nonsense".

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970603.html

I remember Science Fiction stories written back in the 1950's, where astronauts were able to transfer between spaceships.

It does appear possible.

I wonder how many poor animals were sacrificed, to obtain the results.

Kind Regards....

Hi Sparky,

"I wonder how many poor animals were sacrificed, to obtain the results."

I wondered the same thing. I'm a dog person and I frown on using them in experiments in any form. Mice and monkeys, maybe, but not dogs!

-John

Cats, certainly!

Poor Del! LOL

It may run against the grain, but - as far as I understand - when you are spaced, you lose air in your lung and a couple other places immediately, but since your body is a pretty decent container, your blood will not boil away into space. As long as there is no major pressure differentials present, you will function as long as your blood oxygen will last. You will get plenty of discomfort and lesser difficulties, like an early onset of the "bends", but that is a time dependent phenomenon. If the time is long, it does not matter anyway. I read about pantyhose type space suits over the decades, where the authors I respect maintain, that as long as you are properly oxygenated, present day heated / cooled / pressurized suit is not needed. The similarity applied is the old diving suit vs. modern skindiving.

The given link is down at present, but Wiki says ;

"

Humans and animals exposed to vacuum will lose consciousness after a few seconds and die within minutes, but the symptoms are not nearly as graphic as commonly shown in pop culture. Robert Boyle was the first to show that vacuum is lethal to small animals. Blood and other body fluids do boil (the medical term for this condition is ebullism), and the vapour pressure may bloat the body to twice its normal size and slow circulation, but tissues are elastic and porous enough to prevent rupture. Ebullism is slowed by the pressure containment of blood vessels, so some blood remains liquid.^[1][2] Swelling and ebullism can be reduced by containment in a flight suit. Shuttle astronauts wear a fitted elastic garment called the Crew Altitude Protection Suit (CAPS) which prevents ebullism at pressures as low as 15 Torr (2 kPa).^[3] However, even if ebullism is prevented, simple evaporation of blood can cause decompression sickness and gas embolisms. Rapid evaporative cooling of the skin will create frost, particularly in the mouth, but this is not a significant hazard.

Animal experiments show that rapid and complete recovery is the norm for exposures of fewer than 90 seconds, while longer full-body exposures are fatal and resuscitation has never been successful.^[4] There is only a limited amount of data available from human accidents, but it is consistent with animal data. Limbs may be exposed for much longer if breathing is not impaired. Rapid decompression can be much more dangerous than vacuum exposure itself. If the victim holds his breath during decompression, the delicate internal structures of the lungs can be ruptured, causing death. Eardrums may be ruptured by rapid decompression, soft tissues may bruise and seep blood, and the stress of shock will accelerate oxygen consumption leading to asphyxiation.^[5]

In 1942, in one of a series of experiments on human subjects for the Luftwaffe, the Nazi regime tortured Dachau concentration camp prisoners by exposing them to vacuum in order to determine the human body's capacity to survive high-altitude conditions.

Some extremophile microrganisms, such as Tardigrades, can survive vacuum for a period of years. "

Here is some more case reference.

Vacuums can be dangerous - I ran over the cord on mine once.

These types of misrepresentations have led me to realize that I have wasted a large portion of my life reading fiction. I wish that I had read almost all non-fiction, especially in the field of science.

Hello Roger Pink

Would you like the Editor called now?

I gave you another Good Answer Point, because your above unedited Post deserves it.

Kind Regards....

Anna Gosline has equated vacuum effects to the consequence of being chucked out of a space-ship, but the effects of a vacuum still merit discussion. Your point is very worth making, but if you find a book has the wrong cover do you bin it, read it, or change the cover ? Having a protest rally is one option, but rather a waste of time. My own writing skills are abysmal, but they leave the pedants tearing their hair out whilst I go merrily along my way. The majority of scientists and engineers can't write, any more than they can sell. Conversely, those with a degree in English are not often equipped to understand science/engineering. Technical writers must be some type of masochistic hybrid ()

You Wrote: "The majority of scientists and engineers can't write, any more than they can sell. Conversely, those with a degree in English are not often equipped to understand science/engineering. Technical writers must be some type of masochistic hybrid ()"

Or a writer and a scientist could actually talk to each other. There may be some discomfort at first, with the scientist making a joke and maybe laughing a little bit to loudly and the Editor using more than the recommended daily dosage of techno jargon to try to "relate".

I'm willing to bet that if you gave it a few minutes, the scientist could point out that a vacuum and space, although similiar, are not the same thing and the editor could point out that "similiar" is actually spelled "similar". Everyone learns something and the final product is better.

If the trend in society is towards specialization, as it seems to be, we better start trusting each other to know the stuff we're supposed to specialize in.

Hello Roger
I don't know who would have criticized you about your writing. It seems fine to me.
Personally I've never found any of the secrets of the universe in an English book.


I still believe however that the short period of time you can survive in the vacuum pretty much negates the other factors that you've mentioned. That is of course unless you're in the path of a solar flare or a major gamma burst. In that case you may not survive in a spacecraft, or even with the protection of Earth's atmosphere, in the case of a major gamma burst.

Ywroadrunner,

You Wrote "Personally I've never found any of the secrets of the universe in an English book."

I don't know, I think you can learn a lot from a good novel or poem. I've posted earlier that I think science fiction writers play a crucial and mostly ignored role in the scientific discovery process. Think of the influence Gene Roddenberry or H.G. Wells had on their generations.

You Wrote "I still believe however that the short period of time you can survive in the vacuum pretty much negates the other factors that you've mentioned."

You're right. To be completely honest, I didn't believe so at first, but after a few conversations around my office with other Engineers, I realize I've been wrong in my belief that the low temperature of space would kill someone much faster than a vacuum would.

Where I went wrong was my assumption that because of the huge temperature difference between space and the human body (3 Kelvin as compared to 310 Kelvin), the heat would be lost quickly. What I forgot, is that because we are talking about a vacuum here, the quick kind of heat transfer, the kind where molecules collide and exchange energy, can't occur in a vacuum. That leaves only radiant heat transfer, which is a much slower process. So actually one could last for minutes in the space if temperature was the only issue.

Don't fret it. To err is human.

Edison went thru a thousand (?) experiments before settling on carbon thread for his beloved light bulb. Dean Kamen had some of his trials and tribulation with his Segway partly in public. So, what? The one, who never makes a mistake, have not done anything worth remembering.

And don't even start me on the tales of my, ahem, occasionally circuitous arrivals at insights.

What about exposure to cosmic radiation? Something tells me you arent going to end up with super powers...

In space the most mundane things can be dangerous. Just look up how much trouble the early astronauts had with poor heat control, fogging up faceplates, poorly bending joints and having no feel in the fingers just for starters. And you can bet a lot of very smart engineers toiled decades to get to today's useability. But no matter which type you are looking at, the present jointed, the russian semirigid or the up and coming mostly unpressurized elastic type, the same basic problems remain: maintaining integrity, thermal control even when one side is seeing the Sun, the other space, maintaining vision, motor control, fine touch with the fingers etc. There no shortcuts for this.

The solar radiation in form of a solar flare is quite dangerous no matter what suit you have donned. There only retreat works putting so much matter between you and it as you can get behind.

Nothing helps with galactic rays. Those carry up to high GeV energies (and move so fast) that their secondary products are measured routinely on the earth surface. And you would think your few centimeter watery body would mean any resistance to it? Astronauts regularly report seeing flashes when something streaks thru their eyes.

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I always thought, that excellent mastery of any language (with really few exceptions like William Buckley) is way overrated. Its use as discriminatory tool is something I flat out reject. It is just a tool. Too much of it and spelling bees just gets in the way of profitable thinking. Just recently I got an early paper from Enrico Fermi. It was clear, concise, spare writing, almost readable without the equations. That is an exception in technical literature. But, no matter. I rather deal with that, than with marketers and politicians (oh, I forget they are the same) who polish the language apple until a fly will slide off it. Those, who can successfully cross over are few and far inbetween: Jerry Pournelle, Larry Niven, and Nigel Calder (the former editor of Science or was it Nature?) comes to mind. There there are ideas packed with vivid prose. But vivid prose with a weak and sloppy mind reflected? Argh!!

By the way the english language is a deceptive entity. At the beginnig it is easy and sloppy (what, no grammar so to speak, goodie) but then it begins rapidly be more difficult to master. Other, strongly typed languages are the other way around, no matter if you take Latin, German, Russian, Hungarian, Esperanto, Japanese or any such. In the first 3 years in school you learn all the grammar you ever will need, after that only vocabulary and literature. Learning english as a second language is no problem, if you know a first one well. (hobbyhorse of mine)

Lets not forget Bertrand Russell shown here in 1907:

Also noteworthy is James Burke.