Explosive decompression...

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Charismatic Enigma
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Explosive decompression...

Why does the myth that humans would explode if exposed to the non-pressure of space still persist? Almost every other sci fi movie, book, etc. have something like that happening, even in a 2005 episode of Dr. Who.
A majority of things I've read and watched (mostly Gundam related) have had a character blasted out into space without protection, and they often die, but not by exploding.

I read that once NASA did an expierment to see what'd happen and they found that the subject would rendered unconicious in fifteen seconds due to lack of oxygen to the brain.

Anyone else have thoughts on this?
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Re: Explosive decompression...

Charismatic Enigma wrote:Why does the myth that humans would explode if exposed to the non-pressure of space still persist? Almost every other sci fi movie, book, etc. have something like that happening, even in a 2005 episode of Dr. Who.
Things exploding = interesting. People exploding = OMGWTFBBQ! I GOTS TO SEE THAT!!11!one!

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that it's a myth that's long since been disproven, but lots of myths, no matter how dumb or idiotic or illogical or whatever continue on, particularly if they sound vaugely real and seem interesting. The idea of people exploding if they're dumped into space is just another of those things...
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wing zero alpha
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Re: Explosive decompression...

Personally I put it up there with the myths like the one claiming Jimmy Hoffa is buried under the Giants' stadium. Like mcred23, it's long since been disproven, but damn is it so dramatic sounding...
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wonton bob
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I found something pretty interesting...

"In the new sci-fi film Sunshine, an astronaut named Mace must leave his spacecraft without a protective suit. He makes it through his exposure with only a case of frostbite. Could you really survive outer space without a suit?

Yes, for a very short time. The principal functions of a spacesuit are to create a pressurized, oxygenated atmosphere for astronauts, and to protect them from ultraviolet rays and extreme temperatures. Without it, a spacewalker would asphyxiate from the lack of breathable air and suffer from ebullism, in which a reduction in pressure causes the boiling point of bodily fluids to decrease below the body's normal temperature. Since it takes a bit of time for these things to kill you, it's possible to make it through a very quick stint in outer space.

At most, an astronaut without a suit would last about 15 seconds before losing conciousness from lack of oxygen. (That's how long it would take the body to use up the oxygen left in the blood.) Of course, on Earth, you could hold your breath for several minutes without passing out. But that's not going to help in a vacuum. In fact, attempting to hold your breath is a sure way to a quick death. To make it for even a few seconds, Sunshine's Mace must have expelled the air from his lungs before he ventured into the starry void. If he hadn't, the vacuum would have caused that oxygen to expand and rupture his lung tissue, forcing fatal air bubbles into his blood vessels, and ultimately his heart and brain. Scuba divers are also at risk for air embolism; they're instructed not to hold their breath as they ascend from the deep sea."
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Charismatic Enigma
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Yeah, the whole explosive decompression thing is grotesque to me. That's why I've never watched movies like Total Recall and Outland...

Back to Gundam, I've seen several times (in CCA and volume 2 of Gundam SEED Astray) where characters go out in space, but all that happens to them is having to breath heavily once they're inside something again.

That, and in the movie Mission to Mars, one character freezes when exposed to space. In spite of it supposely being an emotional scene, I went :roll: when I saw it.
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wing zero alpha
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Charismatic Enigma wrote:Back to Gundam, I've seen several times (in CCA and volume 2 of Gundam SEED Astray) where characters go out in space, but all that happens to them is having to breath heavily once they're inside something again.
You think those Sci-Fi movie scenes were farfetched, in the CCA novel when Quess was supposed to float from the Jagd Doga to the Sazabi, she was naked. :roll: Not that clothes would make much of a difference in a vacuum, but I always figured one could freeze to death quite easily in space assuming the oxygen deprivation and pressure don't kill you first. As for Astray volume 2, the thing there is when Lowe opened the canopy to his Kimera and the Red Frame's cockpit, he had the two atmospheres connect so that he could float over without having to hold his breath or getting frozen.

And on a side note on Total Recall, I don't see what your problem with that movie would be since it takes place in Mars' atmosphere and not open space, so the scenes showed could happen considering the pressure differences and atmospheric content differences between Mars and Earth. No opinion on Outland.
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Why does the myth exist? It's simple really people are ignorant. Lots of people don't know simple facts and believe something else. If they see the scene of someone not exploding they always can believe something fake that shows someone exploding in space, which really the only thing I can think of is that episode of the Simpson's showing Itchy and Scratchy in the episode where Homer went into space.

So simply put the world is filled with ignorant people believing clearly false things on every subject. Who cares if it's proven true, they either don't know or don't care and will believe something false.
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Wing zero alpha wrote: And on a side note on Total Recall, I don't see what your problem with that movie would be since it takes place in Mars' atmosphere and not open space, so the scenes showed could happen considering the pressure differences and atmospheric content differences between Mars and Earth. No opinion on Outland.

Well, I saw that particular part in Total Recall when I was only like four or five years old and it scared me alot.
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wonton bob wrote:Of course, on Earth, you could hold your breath for several minutes without passing out. But that's not going to help in a vacuum. In fact, attempting to hold your breath is a sure way to a quick death. To make it for even a few seconds, Sunshine's Mace must have expelled the air from his lungs before he ventured into the starry void. If he hadn't, the vacuum would have caused that oxygen to expand and rupture his lung tissue, forcing fatal air bubbles into his blood vessels, and ultimately his heart and brain.
THAT'S why Corso told Cale to exhale... :shock:

Sorry. Just had an awakening moment there.
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People see things in movies and they assume it's true. They assume that cars crashing into each other will explode, or that people blasted with shotguns will be sent flying across a room. It's all Hollywood BS, but people don't bother to think about these things.
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I suspect the movie mechanism of space causing insta gibs is related somehow to the mechanism of space conducting (and in some cases amplifying) sounds.
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I read a "short story" by Clarke once where he dealt with this myth. I say "short story" because it was really an essay, but it was published in a book of short stories. He basically concluded (iirc) that since skin divers can tolerate an additional atmosphere of pressure, a man in space could tolerate the lack of an an atmosphere of pressure... Basically, "If having an extra atmosphere of pressure doesn't make us implode, having one less than normal won't make us explode." He suggested that closing ones eyes would be a good idea, and probably mentioned the exhalation thing as well... though I'm not sure. I found it fascinating and completely plausible at the time, anyway.

And, given the nature of anime, I'm somewhat surprised we don't see Quess naked in the movie... :lol:
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wing zero alpha wrote:You think those Sci-Fi movie scenes were farfetched, in the CCA novel when Quess was supposed to float from the Jagd Doga to the Sazabi, she was naked. :roll: Not that clothes would make much of a difference in a vacuum, but I always figured one could freeze to death quite easily in space assuming the oxygen deprivation and pressure don't kill you first.

And on a side note on Total Recall, I don't see what your problem with that movie would be since it takes place in Mars' atmosphere and not open space, so the scenes showed could happen considering the pressure differences and atmospheric content differences between Mars and Earth. No opinion on Outland.
Actually, the CCA movie is considered one of the few films that was pretty accurate in depicting human exposure to vacuum, a distinction it shares with, among others, 2001: A Space Odyssey. It would've been more accurate if she didn't seem like she was holding her breath in, though.

The naked Quess scene was not that far-fetched either. She would have frozen given sufficient time, but the loss of heat would not occur that quickly--there's no conduction or convection, only radiation, as a mechanism for heat transfer. She'd be dead from other causes long before she turned into a popsicle. Given what we know, she'd probably lose heat faster on a windy day in Antarctica than in deep space.

With regards to Total Recall, that's the point--the physical effects should have been less severe precisely because Mars already has a partial atmosphere. Actually, it should have been less severe even if it occurred in deep space. Bulging eyeballs, dramatic? Yes. Accurate? No.

As for Outland...skip the movie and read the novel adaptation instead. Alan Dean Foster turns a mediocre script into a satisfactory (and more scientifically accurate) novel, and manages to plug up most of the scientific gaffes & plotholes in the process. No wonder the book barely had any screencaps from the movie.

Also, there is conjecture that initial exposure to vacuum could cause dire flatulence, as air in the intestinal tract expands and tries to find a way out. Fortunately though, it's a vacuum...
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isnt it more dangerous though to be sucked out into space due to the pressure difference? lets say you are inside a starship unfortunately near the outer hull and said hull gets penetrated and the decomp forces you out, the violence of the air pressure change um and not to mention the sucking out of a small possibly jagged hole will probably be what really messes u up before u have a chance to begin to freeze of asphyxiate
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That's a possibility.
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razgriz wrote:isnt it more dangerous though to be sucked out into space due to the pressure difference? lets say you are inside a starship unfortunately near the outer hull and said hull gets penetrated and the decomp forces you out, the violence of the air pressure change um and not to mention the sucking out of a small possibly jagged hole will probably be what really messes u up before u have a chance to begin to freeze of asphyxiate
To clarify on another misconception, you're not 'sucked' out, as the vacuum does not exert any force at all. Instead, you are 'shoved' out by the air pressure, with a force dependent on the surface area of the hole & Bernoulli's Principle.

In addition, this incident's pretty relevant to the thread:
Incidentally, we have had one experience with a suit puncture on the Shuttle flights. On STS-37, during one of my flight experiments, the palm restraint in one of the astronaut's gloves came loose and migrated until it punch a hole in the pressure bladder between his thumb and forefinger. It was explosive decompression, just a little 1/8 inch hole, but it was exciting down here in the swamp because it was the first injury we've ever head from a suit incident. Amazingly, the astronaut in question didn't even know the puncture had occured; he was so hopped on adrenalin it wasn't until after he got back in that he even noticed there was a painful red mark on his hand. He figured his glove was chafing and didn't worry about it.

The whole story didn't come out until the suits were back home and a suit technician was setting up to clean that glove; he discovered the dried blood on the outer TMG (thermal micrometrioid garment) and then found the wayward palm restraint bar. What happened: when the metal bar punctured the glove, the skin of the astronaut's hand partially sealed the opening. He bled into space, and at the same time his coagulating blood sealed the opening enough that the bar was retained inside the hole.

The best estimate we've been able to get from the flight surgeons about how long an astronaut might survive a catastrophic suit failure is "several tens of seconds to very few minutes" with almost certainty for detectable permanent damage.
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razgriz
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ah interesting, lol well my fault i never passed physics now i know y :lol:
i guess i got thrown off by the whole "vacuum" of space thing
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