Why is Space a Vacuum

Katchoo · #2 January 28th, 2004, 10:58 PM

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 · #3 January 28th, 2004, 11:25 PM

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 · #4 January 29th, 2004, 04:31 AM

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 · #5 January 29th, 2004, 04:42 AM

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 · #6 January 29th, 2004, 04:48 AM

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 · #7 January 29th, 2004, 08:20 AM

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."