• Question: what happens in a vacume?

    Asked by Padfoot to Anne, Beth, COLFlight, Jon, Tom on 7 Oct 2015.
    • Photo: Columbus Flight Directors

      Columbus Flight Directors answered on 7 Oct 2015:

      Sergio:
      Hi Padfoot!

      Did you mean what would happen to a human if he was in vacuum?
      If so, this is a very interesting question, because reality is that you won’t explode nor immediately freeze nor die like shown in many movies.

      As a matter of fact, you would obviously lose all the oxygen in your lungs so you would not be able to breath. This means that you would lose conciousness in few seconds, but if someone was there to get you very quickly back inside the spacecraft, you would probably survive without any permanent damage to your body.

      Amazing uh?

    • Photo: Tom Morse

      Tom Morse answered on 7 Oct 2015:

      Hi Padfoot and Sergio,

      Wouldn’t liquids start to boil in a vacuum?

      Tom

    • Photo: Beth Healey

      Beth Healey answered on 8 Oct 2015:

      There also wouldn’t be any sound, so no One Direction (even if they already have their spacesuits)!!

    • Photo: Anne Visscher

      Anne Visscher answered on 9 Oct 2015:

      Hi Padfoot,

      In a vacuum, seeds will lose a lot of molecules like water and carbon-based compounds such as oils, so they will become ultra-dry.

      Anne

Comments

  • Photo: Padfoot

    Padfoot commented on :

    Wow thank you so much. That’s amazing ( especially no One Direction)

  • Photo: COLFlight

    COLFlight commented on :

    Sergio:
    Hi Tom
    Yes, liquid boil in vacuum. But inside your body there will not be vacuum, at least not within the first minutes, so your blood and the liquids inside your body will not boil.

    This is a falsification used a lot in sci-fi movies. In reality, it happened that persons were exposed to vacuum (in vacuum chambers, not in space) and they survived. NASA made also tests on chimps in the 60s, and all of them survived with no permanent damage.
    Obviously someone has to take you back into normal pressure within 2-3 minutes 😉