Surviving in Space Without a Spacesuit

Geoffrey writes "The recent movie Sunshine features a scene (echoing the famous scene in 2001: a Space Odyssey) in which two astronauts have to cross from one ship to another without spacesuits. But, can you survive in space without a spacesuit? Morgan Smith, writing in Slate, asks whether this is realistic, and concludes: "Yes, for a very short time.""

Comments

next time

[caffeinemessiah]

good thing to remember next time you're in space:

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.

You can survive for 30 seconds

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

But the odds of being picked up by a passing space ship in that time are two to the power of 2079460347 to one against.

Re:You can survive for 30 seconds

[Thrakamazog]

...and falling

Forget the big problem; important smaller problem

[weak*]

Maybe, but once they retrieve you, if your clothing needs to be removed for any reason (e.g. medical), you're going to have shrinkage like you just did the polar bear plunge... and all in front of your unreasonably hot female costar. :(

Re:SG-1 had a similar scene

[Ucklak]

I liked how Outland dealt with the subject; just have the guys explode making a mess in their spacesuit.
Can you imagine being the next guy to use that suit?

"Uh, sorry but Jeff thought that tarantulas were crawling in his suit so he pulled his air line and exploded. We cleaned it the best we could."

In space, nobody can..

[Plutonite]

..hear your frozen dick fall off.

[The author of this post understands the negligible effects of loss of heat solely through radiation in extremely short time periods, but encourages the reader to take a break and try to laugh].

Re:SG-1 had a similar scene

[orzetto]

And the best quote from that episode was seconds before that, when Carter asked whether it was possible to transport them directly from the inside of the fighter:

Carter Dad, can you beam them up?

Jacob/Selmak Who am I, Scotty?

Re:15 seconds?

[Funkcikle]

Surely, astronauts ought to have better lung capacity than yours truly?

Try again whilst drunk.

Duct tape

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Lots. Wrap yourself up. Can't explode then.

Couple of rolls sounds like a reasonable makeshift pressure suit.