Re: Why is Space a Vacuum
 

Being in a vacuum makes the gasses and liquids diffuse through your skin rather rapidly. They do have a massive number of pores, which are just holes, after all. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif You will not explode or anything, but you will not Last as long as just being under water.

Re: Why is Space a Vacuum
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No, that's simply not true. Going from normal pressure to zero pressure is not as bad as going from very high pressure to normal pressure. You will experience some slight effects, but not the debilitating conditions that a diver coming straight up will.

Your skin doesn't difuse liquids very rapidly at all. And your pores aren't simply holes in the skin. They are the external openings of your sweat glands. They don't diffuse any liquids under normal circumstances expect what is in your sweat glands. The vacuum of space isn't normal circumstances, but it's not going to suck your blood out your pores or anything like that.

Re: Why is Space a Vacuum
 

in one of the short stories i read, people evacuated from one ship in space to another after expelling air from their lungs. no-one was in space more than 30 seconds. feasible?

side note: the book mentioned a technique where you breath heavily a few times then expell the air from your lungs. i tried this and was able to hold my breath for 20 seconds at the start and after some practice, 35 seconds. it really is easier, despite sounding counter-productive.

Re: Why is Space a Vacuum
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Competition free divers use this technique I believe. They basically hyperventilate themselves by taking deep breaths for a couple minutes. What this is doing is it expands the lungs and makes them larger, giving you more storage for oxygen. If you do this technique too long though you could passout from the hyperventilation. I did it once and was able to extend my ability to hold my breath to somewhere around a full minute, perhaps even longer.

Re: Why is Space a Vacuum
 

Geo... your skin will also rupture with many tiny holes as the molecules inside your body attempt to diffuse from areas of very high concentration to areas of 0 concentration. Skin is a very weak barrier. It is, at best, no better than going from high pressure to low pressure. Of course, it is exactly the same as divers coming up from high pressure to low pressure...

Re: Why is Space a Vacuum
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No. 0 pressure environment is entirely different from high pressure environment. High pressure environment pushes things into the system, low pressure environment pulls things out of it.

Re: Why is Space a Vacuum
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">So you say, but you are contradicting everything I can find from people that are supposed to know this stuff. If you can post something to support your assertion, fine. Otherwise, I am content with what I have found on the subject.

Re: Why is Space a Vacuum
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">well, that explains something. i only took two or three breaths.

Re: Why is Space a Vacuum
 

The reason the damage isn't as extreme as in going from depth is that the pressure difference as said isn't that big. Go down 38 feet into water..congradulations, you've just doubled the pressure. Going from here to the surface is very similar to going from the surface to space.

It's not going to be a pleasurable experience, but Fyron is exaggerating.

"If you don't try to hold your breath, exposure to space for half a minute or so is unlikely to produce permanent injury."

This is confirmed with experimental animals.

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/as...rs/970603.html

Re: Why is Space a Vacuum
 

Some more literature to edify you...

http://space.about.com/cs/basics/a/bodyvacuum1.htm
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">And some more of the same:

http://www.urbanlegends.com/death/bo..._in_space.html
http://www.badastronomy.com/mad/1999/space_feel.html

Nothing I have found talks about anything seeping through your skin. Long term a body in a vacuum would be desicated, that's why food is often vacuum packed. But it doesn't happen that fast, certainly not as fast as you are going to asphyxiate anyway.