Why is Space a Vacuum

[geoschmo]

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?

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.

Basically this is feasible, as long as someone is there to pull in the unconcious people. The technique divers use doesn't really help in vacuum. A diver will expell all the air they can, but there will still be enough oxygen there to keep you concious. And as you surface the lower pressure causes the air in your lungs to expand, which satisfys your instinct to inhale. If you don't expell the air in your lungs it will still expand, but cause damage. That's why you can't hold your breath in vaccum too, cause the air will expand and damage your lungs. The difference is expelling your lungs in a vacuum leaves you without enough oxygen to keep you concious for more then a few seconds.

So 30 seconds wont kill you or cause any permenant damage. But it will incapacitate you. You'll need someone there to pull you in.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

ok.

[Katchoo]

I don't see how anyone could survive out in space without a full bodysuit.

Putting aside the effects (of lack of) on your lungs, the extreme cold of space would freeze any moisture on your body relatively quickly. Your skin, muscles, and internal organs would loose all body heat and the moisture would start to crystalize, and that's the kind of extensive/culmative damage that no Doctor on Earth right now can 100% correct/repair; otherwise cryogenics would be a much more valuable tool than it is right now.

I cringe at the effect exposure to space would do to your eyeballs !

Unless the human body can be genetically enhanced to survive in space for short durations, I think we'll always need 100% coverage to work/survive in space.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

you must have missed it, one of the Posts or links mentioned that heat isn't lost fast in space.

my breakdown of why that might be: heat is lost two ways: radiation and transfer. your body doesn't produce much radiation and in space there isn't much matter to transfer heat to.

[Suicide Junkie]

Even though you may be reasonably warm, the zero pressure will cause your water to both boil and freeze at the same time, at your regular body temperature.
That's not going to be nice... try not to sweat too much

[ January 29, 2004, 02:33: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[Phoenix-D]

Your blood probably won't boil until after you're dead from lack of oxygen anyway. Water has a very low pressure-induced boiling point, and the cold would just push that down farther.

Remember that vaccum doesn't conduct at -all- so the only heat loss or gain would be from radiation.

[geoschmo]

Your blood won't boil at all unless it's exposed to the vacuum. Your own internal body pressure prevents that. If your skin were punctured any blood that escaped the wound would boil off though. If you were to sweat it would boil, and the saliva in your mouth would probably boil off. But the fluid in your body that was not exposed to the vacuum would be fine. At least for much longer then it would take for you to die from lack of oxygen anyway.

Your blood wont freeze immedietly, because of the previously mentioned fact about vacuum being a very poor conductor of heat.

[ January 29, 2004, 02:49: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Kamog]

According to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

"If you hold a lungful of air, you can survive in the total vacuum of space for about thirty seconds. However, with space being the mind-boggling size it is the chances of getting picked up by another ship wihin those thirty seconds are two to the power of two hundred and seventy-six thousand, seven hundred and nine to one against."

[dogscoff]

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.

Does this mean I have to rewrite this?

[Atrocities]

Originally posted by aiken:
Where is nothing can stop you from nebula mining. But only for organics. I doubt that minerals and rads are so widespread in nebulas. The only exception - it was formed by supernova bLast. When about 10e-1 percent (approximately) of heavy elements could be found in such system.
Btw, is it possible to give new Ability for Storm 1,2,3 system, e.g. "Planet - Change Organics Value" or a kind of this?

Hey, it is nice to see some one here who has a System Shock Avatar. Great games.

As for abilities, that would be something to ask fyron.