what would happen if you open your faceshield in outerspace? various movies have you exploding, freezing, suffocating.
If you exposed yourself to space, you certainly wouldn’t like the experience too much. Most all movies depict the process inaccurately:
If you were suddenly exposed to space, air would rush explosively out of your lungs, certainly damaging your airway on the way out.
Now because there is no air in space, your body would need to radiate its heat away from you, rather than transfer it directly to air, such as is done in an atmosphere. Losing heat on a cold day is much much quicker than losing heat via radiation in space, and your body’s vascular system would do a good job of protecting your blood, so it would not boil (liquids have a lower boiling point in a vacuum).
After awhile, your cells would freeze, and the expanding ice crystals inside them would cause the cellular walls to rupture, making you (or the meat) pretty messy…It would take hours or more for a human to freeze solid, since we have a great deal of heat energy stored inside of ourselves.
The most recent reputable story said it’d be about 30 seconds of productive consciousness, about 30 seconds of non-productive (uncoordinated) consciousness, a minute or two of unconsciousness, then a whole lot of death.
You’d probably be bleeding from your nose, eyes, ears and mouth by the end, and if you tried to hold your breath you could do some serious damage to your lungs.
If you exposed yourself to space, you certainly wouldn’t like the experience too much. Most all movies depict the process inaccurately:
If you were suddenly exposed to space, air would rush explosively out of your lungs, certainly damaging your airway on the way out.
Now because there is no air in space, your body would need to radiate its heat away from you, rather than transfer it directly to air, such as is done in an atmosphere. Losing heat on a cold day is much much quicker than losing heat via radiation in space, and your body’s vascular system would do a good job of protecting your blood, so it would not boil (liquids have a lower boiling point in a vacuum).
After awhile, your cells would freeze, and the expanding ice crystals inside them would cause the cellular walls to rupture, making you pretty messy…It would take hours or more for a human to freeze solid, since we have a great deal of heat energy stored inside of ourselves.
Here’s Cecil on the subject:
If you were thrown into the vacuum of space with no space suit, would you explode?
Don’t forget to search the archives! 
Arjuna34
Oops. sorry for the double-post. I had left something in the first one that might have caused confusion, since I copied it from a post I had made on this topic previous.
how do they know what those extreme combined effects of vacuum and cold will have on a human body?
All you could want to know on the subject:
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970603.html
I don’t get this part. Do modern spacesuits have heating equipment? Wouldn’t normal metabolic heat keep the cells nice ‘n’ toasty? Consider raking leaves on a cool fall day, for example. The air temperature is well below body temperature, but the mild exertion allows one to work in shorts and a tee-shirt. Since the only heat loss in space is through radiate cooling, wouldn’t one’s concern be with excess heat buildup? Well, that and the lack of air to breath.
Any thoughts on spacesuits of the future? Is there a plastic strong enough and malleable enough to make a simple design - pressurized bodysuit, air intake and cooling system. Could it be so closely fitted to the body to make working outside a habitat easy?
sounds like you could last a while if you had some oxygen? never knew that. expected the “OUTLAND” explosion of the “MISSION TO MARS” freezeup or the “SIMPSONS” eye bulge and pop.
Didn’t NASA of the Air Force put a monkey in a Vacuum just to figure out this exact question?
The movie, “Event Horizon,” showed that the guy who got blown into space was bleeding from his eyes, nose, and mouth but did not explode or implode or anything. Also, the captain guy played by Laurence Fishburne (ah, this might be wrong sp) told the space guy to blow out all the air in his lungs before he got shot out. Seems like this is an accurate movie.
I don’t really know what the future holds for spacesuits, other than continually developing materials to keep them lighter. Right now, it would weigh about 250 pounds on earth, without the astronaut.
The suit does not contain Earth-style atmosphere. The astronaut works using 100% Oxygen. This has the problem of not removing heat as effectively as Earth-style atmosphere, and so the astronaut wear a special suit close to the body that looks like long-johns, but has cooling tubes running through it. The reason for this 100% oxygen is to prevent nitrogen buildup, leading to “the bends”. The pressure inside is about 4.3 psi, about 1/3 that of earth pressure.
The suit is comprised of 12 layers, used to protect the astronaut from the extremes temperatures of space. With no atmospheric shielding such as provided by the earth, the temperature can reach as high as 250 degrees Farenheit on the sunny side, and as low as -250 Deg Farenheit on the shaded side.
The first inside two layers are liquid cooled undergarmets.
Next, a pressure bladder of urethane-coated Nylon, surrounded by a fabric of pressure-resisting Dacron.
The outer 7 layers of the layers of the suit are comprized of aluminized Mylar, with Dacron scrim to protect against micrometeoroids, topped by a single layer of a combination of Gortex, Kevlar, and Nomex.
Along with the electronics and machinery incorporated in the suit, an astronaut can work comfortably for about 5 to 7 hours. Most do not however, for the suit isn’t the most comfortable thing to work in.
Personally, I think the future of space exploration doesn’t lie in stations and manned excursions into the unknown. The real future is to design and build more sophisticated robotic explorers to work on our behalf. Robots cannot suffer from the effects of long-term space living like we do. Robots do not get lonely, or have their “muscles” atrophy. They do not suffer from depression, or homesickness. They simply explore farther than we can, using fewer dollars and can deliver much more information for the dollar. They can go into conditions that would be fatal for humans. I think that robotic missions, such as the pathfinder will do far more for scientific knowlege than something like the International Space Station will.
Anyway, enough of my ranting. Hope you got the info you wanted.
And they are damn boring. People don’t watch Robby the Robot on TV, they watch Captain Kirk. HAL doesn’t save the universe, Mr. Spock saves the universe.
(You’re right, dammit.)
Cell walls? Should we protect our chloroplasts as well?
This also coincides with what has been described in at least 2 pieces by Arthur C. Clarke, including of course the 2001 emergency-airlock scene. In another, earlier story --the title of which I can’t remember for the life of me, 20 years after reading it-- he rescues an entire crew by this method. He also gives the hint that if you do this on purpose, you may want to pre-hyperventilate (if you can’t prebreathe lower-pressure O2) in order to have enough O2 already in the bloodstream for the brain to stay alert during the egress.
jrd
OK, at the risk of derailing this thread, what are the effects of going the other way in regards to pressure?
Specifically, gpoing under water at great depth. Does the body (as it is mostly water) have any problems functioning at extreme depths, assuming the pressure has been attained slowly - like with deep sea divers? If you are acclimated to the pressure and are breathing pressurized air, how much external pressure can the body withstand? Do divers at extreme depth feel any different than divers do at, say 130 ft?
I am also curious as to what is the most pressure that a human body can withstand for extended periods, and does it make any difference whether or not the external pressure is in a gas or liquid? I keep thinking of the movie “The Abyss” when reading the comments about “2001” and “Event Horizon”. In “The Abyss”, the female lead is essential dragged along the seafloor (at great depth) with no ill effects other than her immediate drowning (don’t worry, she recovers ). However, to go even lower, the male lead has to don a special “liquid” breathing apparatus to be able to breath at the even greater depths. What are the physics behind making this necessary, if it is accurate?
Because it’s already happened. Three cosmonauts, the crew of the Soyuz 11, were killed in an accident when returning from the Salyut 1 space station in 1971. A valve on their re-entry capsule was forced open by the explosion when they separated from an unneeded stage of the vehicle in preparation for re-entry. The valve allowed all the air in the capsule to escape; the men were totally unprotected, with no space suits or helmets.
Mission control thought the lack of communication was due to a fault in the radio system somewhere. When the recovery crew came to open the hatch on the capsule, it took them a moment to realize that the crew were dead. No exploded bodies, no boiling blood.
The link Stupendous man gave also describes a near-accident at NASA in 1965, and references a chimp study.
I do remember Arthur C Clarke saying that this was his nitpick of the film 2001- Dave should have exhaled before exiting his pod. Is it to prevent all the air violently rushing out of your lungs in the vacuum of spacing and injuring yourself?