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

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. :(

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].

Duct tape

[EmbeddedJanitor]

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

Couple of rolls sounds like a reasonable makeshift pressure suit.