Could I survive briefly in space without a space suit?

[Viking]

Imagine that I for some reason would have to leave my comfy space station to get to another. Unfortunatly, the two aren't connected, and I don't have a space suit. Fortunatly, they are no more than say 30 meters apart, and they have a rope between them that I can pull myself along by, and I can also hold my breath for maybe 90 seconds. Would I survive this experience?

[bedlamite]

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970603.html

[Bigjake]

Holding you breath in vacuum would end badly,  I'd imagine.  You'd probably have better luck exhaling entirely,  so as to avoid the pressure variable.  

 Couldn't speculate on the rest, past the part where it's supposed to be really cold up there  




*  This could quite possibly be utter BS,  just a WAG based on first aid theory for a sucking chest wound.

[Viking]

Thanks!

[TommyGunn]

Imagine that I for some reason would have to leave my comfy space station to get to another. Unfortunatly, the two aren't connected, and I don't have a space suit. Fortunatly, they are no more than say 30 meters apart, and they have a rope between them that I can pull myself along by, and I can also hold my breath for maybe 90 seconds. Would I survive this experience?

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970603.html

Interesting.  Early Science Fiction Author Stanley Weinbaum speculated about this in a story where a astronaut had to get from one spaceship to another (I forget the circumstances exactly).  His answer was roughly the same as this as found in Bedlamite's link.  However it was a little more elaborate.  One thing I recall was the astronaut figuring he wouldn't freeze to death because heat was transfered through convection, conduction, and radiation, and only the last would work in space.

[Fly320s]

 Couldn't speculate on the rest, past the part where it's supposed to be really cold up there  

What would be cold?  There is nothing there.

[Bigjake]

What would be cold?  There is nothing there.

Every time water is mentioned,  it seems like they're after traces of it or ice.

[Ron]

There is no such thing as cold per se. Cold is the relative absence of heat.

Does heat radiate away in a vacuum?

[Perd Hapley]

Imagine that I for some reason would have to leave my comfy space station to get to another. Unfortunatly, the two aren't connected, and I don't have a space suit. Fortunatly, they are no more than say 30 meters apart, and they have a rope between them that I can pull myself along by, and I can also hold my breath for maybe 90 seconds. Would I survive this experience?

So, almost certainly not?


Also, would the vacuum eventually suck Jayne out of Serenity's slightly open cargo hatch?

[Fitz]

Whippersnappers

When I was your age, we had to go into orbit manually... And we didn't have no newfangled spacey suits

[Northwoods]

 .

[zahc]

Short answer: you might make it. You would not freeze instantly due to lack of conduction, although you would probably get some frostbite. Your blood would not instantly boil although you would burst some capillarys (think: your blood pressure is enough to raise the boiling point above body temp). I think your greatest risk would be lung carnage.

[Hutch]

There is no such thing as cold per se. Cold is the relative absence of heat.

Does heat radiate away in a vacuum?

Yup.  Strictly speaking, there's a whole lotta vacuum between here and the Sun.  All we get is radiated heat.

[Angel Eyes]

"Open the pod bay doors, please, HAL."

Something like this, then:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=gpwvJzcfL1w#t=64

... and not like this:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=r8G2EM_L2nw#t=59

[Boomhauer]

Whippersnappers

When I was your age, we had to go into orbit manually... And we didn't have no newfangled spacey suits

So you were a part of this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6xJzAYYrX8

[Firethorn]

Event Horizon has a pretty good depiction of what would most likely happen.

One thing to realize is that you're going to be getting cold not because of radiation, but because of off-gassing of your body's fluids.  Remember swamp coolers?  As the water on/in the surface of your body evaporates it takes more than it's share of heat with it in the process of changing to the gas state.

Also, you won't last 90 seconds by holding your breath because your body isn't capable of holding the pressure difference without catastrophic results(IE blown lungs, esophagus, etc...).  As such, your lungs will be in a vacuum as well, which means that they'll be tossing oxygen in the bloodstream out into space as well as CO2.  Useful consciousness estimated in the upper single digits.

Now, what would be possible would be some sort of facemask system that provides *some* pressure.  You could have some sort of emergency breath mask that seals tight to the face(and probably around back) that would be HIGHLY uncomfortable due to the necessary pressures that provides pure O2 at about 1/10th of an atmosphere and you'd be good for maybe an hour, assuming it has some means of scrubbing the CO2 and the O2 holds out.

[Perd Hapley]

Short answer: you might make it. You would not freeze instantly due to lack of conduction, although you would probably get some frostbite. Your blood would not instantly boil although you would burst some capillarys (think: your blood pressure is enough to raise the boiling point above body temp). I think your greatest risk would be lung carnage.

There doesn't seem much chance he would make it. If I'm reading that NASA web page correctly, and it's accurate, he would not be able to pull himself 30 meters before he lost consciousness, or at least lost the use of his hands. If he managed to get himself moving in the right direction, fast enough, and if the hatch sealed behind him, he might make it. If there's someone to help him on the other side, or he somehow managed to awake and/or recover on his own. That's a lot of if. 

[cordex]

If he managed to get himself moving in the right direction, fast enough, and if the hatch sealed behind him, he might make it. If there's someone to help him on the other side, or he somehow managed to awake and/or recover on his own. That's a lot of if. 

We're already iffing Viking into space and you're straining at those gnats?

[Firethorn]

he would not be able to pull himself 30 meters before he lost consciousness,

Space, no gravity or air to worry about?  He should be able to clear 30m in 3 seconds or less, assuming that he has a good platform to launch himself from - anybody capable of jumping in earth gravity is capable of propelling their body faster than 9.8m/s.  Round up, you get that somebody should be able to clear 10m/s with a relatively simple jump.  You want the cable in case you *miss*.

A *fast* automatic airlock is also highly desirable.

[BryanP]

It depends on whether you're in the movie Outland or if you're in 2001: A Space Odyssey. 

[AJ Dual]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5HOtNcDiCs

Actual case. Or at least as close as you're going to get.

Granted, it's edited for the documentary it aired on, but that's about how long you'll have to function and get yourself into an airlock and throw whatever necessary controls are needed to repressurize. A minute or two more for someone else in a suit or with a manipulator arm or whatever to grab you do it for you and still survive without significant brain damage, assuming you survive at all.

I like the part where he says he could feel the saliva on his tongue begin to fizz and boil. 

[Ron]

Event Horizon has a pretty good depiction of what would most likely happen.

One thing to realize is that you're going to be getting cold not because of radiation, but because of off-gassing of your body's fluids.  Remember swamp coolers?  As the water on/in the surface of your body evaporates it takes more than it's share of heat with it in the process of changing to the gas state.

Now that makes perfect sense. Loss of heat through boiling/evaporation of our H2O. I knew there had to be a some vehicle for removing the energy.

The radiation from the sun I expect operates at a different spectrum and magnitude than what a human body would give off 

[cordex]

The radiation from the sun I expect operates at a different spectrum and magnitude than what a human body would give off 

True, but the human body radiates heat too.