Why is Space a Vacuum

[Fyron]

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. You will not explode or anything, but you will not Last as long as just being under water.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
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. You will not explode or anything, but you will not Last as long as just being under water.

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.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

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.

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
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.

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.

[Fyron]

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...

[Fyron]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
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?

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.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
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...

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.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

I did it once and was able to extend my ability to hold my breath to somewhere around a full minute, perhaps even longer.

well, that explains something. i only took two or three breaths.

[Phoenix-D]

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

[geoschmo]

Some more literature to edify you...

http://space.about.com/cs/basics/a/bodyvacuum1.htm

The human body is amazingly resilient. The worst problem would be lack of oxygen, not lack of pressure in the vacuum. If returned to a normal atmosphere fairly quickly, you would survive with few if any irreversible injuries.

There have actually been cases of parts of astronauts bodies being exposed to vacuum, when suits were damaged. The results were negligible.

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.