What will happen in space without a spacesuit? What will happen to a person’s body if he goes into space without a spacesuit? The unfortunate person will immediately turn into ice

26.04.2012 00:52

1. A person won’t instantly turn into an ice cube?

Heating or cooling occurs either through contact with a cold external environment or through thermal radiation.
In a vacuum there is no medium, there is nothing to contact with. More precisely, in a vacuum there is a very rarefied gas, which, due to its rarefied state, gives a very weak effect. In a thermos, vacuum is used precisely to retain heat! Without having contact with a cold substance, the hero will not experience burning cold at all.

2. It will take a long time to freeze

As for radiation, the human body, once in a vacuum, will gradually give off heat by radiation. In a thermos, the walls of the flask are made mirror to retain radiation. This process is quite slow. Even if the astronaut is not wearing a spacesuit, but he has clothes, they will help keep him warm.

3. Get fried?

But you can get a tan. If this happens in space near a star, then you can get a sunburn on exposed skin - like from excessive tanning on the beach. If this happens somewhere in Earth's orbit, then the effect will be stronger than on the beach, since there is no atmosphere there that protects from hard ultraviolet radiation. 10 seconds is enough to cause a burn. But still, this is also not a burning heat, and besides, clothing should also protect. And if we are talking about a hole in a spacesuit or a crack in a helmet, then you don’t have to worry about this topic.

4. Boiling saliva

The boiling point of liquids depends on pressure. The lower the pressure, the lower the boiling point. Therefore, in a vacuum, liquids will evaporate. This was discovered in experiments - not immediately, but saliva boils, since the pressure is almost zero, and the temperature of the tongue is 36 C. Apparently, the same thing will happen with all mucous membranes (in the eyes, in the lungs) - they will dry out, if only from the body will not receive new mucus.
By the way, if you take not just a liquid film, but a large volume of water, then, probably, there will be an effect like “dry ice”: evaporation occurs on the outside, heat is quickly lost with evaporation, due to this the inside freezes. It can be assumed that a ball of water in space will partially evaporate, but otherwise turn into a piece of ice.

5. Will your blood boil?

Elastic skin, blood vessels, and the heart will create enough pressure so that nothing boils.

6. The champagne effect is also not expected.

Scuba divers have such a nuisance as decompression sickness. The reason is what happens to the bottle of champagne.
In addition to boiling, there is also the dissolution of gases in the blood. When the pressure drops, the gases turn into bubbles. Champagne releases dissolved carbon dioxide, while scuba divers release nitrogen.
But this effect occurs at large pressure differences - at least several atmospheres. And when you get into a vacuum, the difference is only one atmosphere. The article says nothing on this topic, does not describe any symptoms - apparently, this is not enough.

7. Will the air burst from the inside?

It is assumed that the victim will exhale it and therefore will not tear it. What if he doesn’t breathe out? Let's assess the threat. Let the pressure in the spacesuit be maintained at 1 atm. This is 10 kg per square centimeter. If a person tries to hold his breath, the soft palate gets in the way of the air. If there is an area of ​​at least 2x2 cm, then the load will be 40 kg. It is unlikely that the soft palate will withstand it - the person will exhale on his own, like a deflated balloon.

8. Will the person suffocate?

This is the main and real threat. There is nothing to breathe. How long can a person survive without air? Trained divers - a few minutes, an untrained person - no more than a minute.
But! This is during inhalation, when the lungs are full of air with residual oxygen. And there, remember, you have to exhale. How long can a simple person hold out while exhaling? 30 seconds. But! When you exhale, the lungs do not “shrink” completely; a little oxygen remains. In space, apparently, there will be even less oxygen left (as much as can be retained). The specific time after which a person will lose consciousness from suffocation is known - about 14 seconds.

Heating or cooling occurs either through contact with a cold external environment or through thermal radiation.

In a vacuum there is no medium, there is nothing to contact with. More precisely, in a vacuum there is a very rarefied gas, which, due to its rarefied state, gives a very weak effect. In a thermos, vacuum is used precisely to retain heat! Without having contact with a cold substance, the hero will not experience burning cold at all.

It will take a long time to freeze

As for radiation, the human body, once in a vacuum, will gradually give off heat by radiation. In a thermos, the walls of the flask are made mirror to retain radiation. This process is quite slow. Even if the astronaut is not wearing a spacesuit, but he has clothes, they will help keep him warm.

Will it get fried?

But you can get a tan. If this happens in space near a star, then you can get a sunburn on bare skin - like from excessive tanning on the beach. If this happens somewhere in Earth's orbit, then the effect will be stronger than on the beach, since there is no atmosphere there that protects from hard ultraviolet radiation. 10 seconds is enough to cause a burn. But still, this is also not a burning heat, and besides, clothing should also protect. And if we are talking about a hole in a spacesuit or a crack in a helmet, then you don’t have to worry about this topic.

Boiling saliva

The boiling point of liquids depends on pressure. The lower the pressure, the lower the boiling point. Therefore, in a vacuum, liquids will evaporate. This was discovered in experiments - not immediately, but saliva boils, since the pressure is almost zero, and the temperature of the tongue is 36 ° C. Apparently, the same thing will happen to all mucous membranes (in the eyes, in the lungs) - they will dry out, unless new mucus comes from the body.

By the way, if you take not just a liquid film, but a large volume of water, then, probably, there will be an effect like “dry ice”: evaporation occurs on the outside, heat is quickly lost with evaporation, due to this the inside freezes. It can be assumed that a ball of water in space will partially evaporate, but otherwise turn into a piece of ice.

Will your blood boil?

Elastic skin, blood vessels, and the heart will create enough pressure so that nothing boils. The effect of champagne is also not expected. Scuba divers have such a nuisance as decompression sickness. The reason is what happens to the bottle of champagne. In addition to boiling, there is also the dissolution of gases in the blood. When the pressure drops, the gases turn into bubbles. Champagne releases dissolved carbon dioxide, while scuba divers release nitrogen. But this effect occurs at large pressure differences - at least several atmospheres. And when you get into a vacuum, the difference is only one atmosphere. The article says nothing on this topic, does not describe any symptoms - apparently, this is not enough.

Will the air burst from the inside?

It is assumed that the victim will exhale it - and therefore will not tear it apart. What if he doesn’t breathe out? Let's assess the threat. Let the pressure in the spacesuit be maintained at 1 atm. This is 10 kg per square centimeter. If a person tries to hold his breath, the soft palate gets in the way of the air. If there is an area of ​​at least 2x2 cm, then the load will be 40 kg. It is unlikely that the soft palate will withstand it - the person will exhale on his own, like a deflated balloon.

Will the person suffocate?

This is the main and real threat. There is nothing to breathe. How long can a person survive without air? Trained divers - a few minutes, an untrained person - no more than a minute. But! This is during inhalation, when the lungs are full of air with residual oxygen. And there, remember, you have to exhale. How long can a simple person hold out while exhaling? 30 seconds. But! When you exhale, the lungs do not “shrink” completely; a little oxygen remains. In space, apparently, there will be even less oxygen left (as much as can be retained). The specific time after which a person will lose consciousness from suffocation is known - about 14 seconds.

But a person in a vacuum still has 10 seconds!

Many people often wonder “What would happen if...?” This article will tell you what happens to a person who finds himself in outer space without a protective suit. There are several erroneous versions, based not on real experimental data, but rather taken from science fiction films. The article will help you distinguish truth from fiction and understand cause-and-effect relationships.

The peculiarity of outer space is an almost complete vacuum. In a vacuum there is no atmospheric pressure; it is a highly discharged gas. But how does this affect a person? How much time is left for salvation and does it exist in principle?

There is an opinion that a person will instantly explode. It is a myth. Skin is a reliable protector. In addition, the skin perfectly helps maintain the internal pressure of the body at first, as a result of which the blood does not boil from a sudden change in pressure. The pressure will, of course, decrease, but gradually. Due to the decrease in pressure, ebullism will occur, which is expressed in the appearance of bubbles in the body fluids. In this case, the body can double in size.

But there are other liquids that do not have reliable protection, for example, saliva. It has been experimentally established that saliva can boil in outer space, since there is practically no pressure in a vacuum, and saliva has body temperature. But boiling will not happen instantly. In space, liquids evaporate quite slowly. In addition to saliva, other unprotected liquids from the mucous membranes and even the eyes will begin to evaporate.

Can a person freeze in space? Maybe, but this is a rather lengthy process. There is no thermal conductivity in space, it is neither hot nor cold there, so it will not be possible to transfer heat in this way. Heat is lost through radiation. A person constantly radiates heat, but in ordinary life it is almost unnoticeable. People are protected by clothing, warmed by the sun and the earth, the atmosphere insulates well, as a result of which the heat given off is returned. There are no insulators in space, so heat will begin to constantly escape.

In addition, due to the lack of insulators, there is a high probability of getting burns. There is incredibly strong ultraviolet radiation in space. Literally 10 seconds are enough to cause burns comparable to the consequences of a long stay on the beach.

In outer space, under no circumstances should you attempt to hold your breath. Such erroneous actions can lead to lung rupture. The lungs and airways are not designed to hold atmospheric pressure in a vacuum. Of course, holding your breath in space is quite difficult, since the air will begin to exert enormous pressure on the soft palate. The person will not be able to stand it and will instinctively exhale. But it's better not to even try.

How long can you live in space without a spacesuit?

The main danger of outer space for humans is the complete absence of oxygen. As was said, in space you cannot hold your breath while inhaling, so there will be no supply of oxygen in the body. But the circulatory system will continue to function as usual, as a result of which after 15 seconds even the most trained person will lose consciousness due to lack of oxygen in the brain. In addition, shortly before losing consciousness, a person will cease to navigate in space and see. But he is still alive and can be saved within two minutes. Other organs are not so sensitive to oxygen starvation. After two minutes the person will simply suffocate.

Provided that a person who finds himself in outer space is delivered to a safe place within the first minutes, he will survive and escape with ebullism, burns from ultraviolet radiation and temporary blindness. As you can see, the human body is extremely tenacious, because even in a vacuum, the time for rescue is calculated not in seconds, but in minutes.

Among all the possible ways to die, among science fiction writers, death in space stands out. We haven't seen enough in films about space: cracks in space suits, explosions at orbital stations, and even alien attacks. All this, of course, poses a mortal threat to astronauts, but what exactly? What will happen to a person in outer space without a spacesuit? Some claim that a person will instantly freeze to death, others, on the contrary, that his blood will begin to boil, and others say that the astronauts will completely explode from low pressure. Let's try to figure it out.

A man's body will explode in outer space

A fairly popular theory based on the fact that the air pressure inside the lungs will burst a person, since there is practically zero pressure in space. Actually this is not true. There really is virtually zero pressure in space, but our skin is elastic enough to withstand the pressure of our internal organs from the inside. As for air, the vacuum in outer space will cause it to escape almost instantly. All the air from the lungs will instantly leave the body through the respiratory tract, and it is better not to resist this. Trying to hold your breath will cause the air escaping to damage your lungs.

In addition to air from the lungs, a person will also lose gases from the stomach and intestines, and these processes will look especially unpleasant.

A person's blood will boil due to low pressure

It would seem, what is the connection between low pressure in space and blood boiling? But in fact there is a connection. The lower the atmospheric pressure, the lower the boiling point of the liquid. For example, at the peak of Mount Everest, where the atmospheric pressure is much lower than in other places on the planet, water boils at a temperature of approximately 70˚C. It is reliably known that a person who finds himself in outer space without a spacesuit will immediately begin to salivate. This does not mean that it will heat up to 100˚C, but it means that in outer space, the temperature of our body (36˚C) is enough for the liquid to boil and evaporate.

All of the above applies to liquids that are affected by the vacuum of space (saliva, sweat, moisture on the eyes), but has nothing to do with blood. Everything that is inside a person will be normal, since the skin and blood vessels will create sufficient pressure so that nothing boils there at body temperature.

A person will instantly turn into ice

Another popular theory is based on the fact that the temperature in space is approximately -270˚C. But this hypothesis is not true either. It is indeed very cold in space, but you won’t turn into ice thanks to the same cosmic vacuum. Since there is “nothing” in space, there is accordingly nothing to give off heat to. Despite this, your body will still begin to lose heat through radiation, but this is a fairly long process from which you will not die.

How long can you survive without a spacesuit in outer space?

After the refutations described above, you might have the impression that a person in space does not need a spacesuit at all. But of course this is not true. A person without a spacesuit will die quite quickly in outer space, and we will try to explain why.

1. The main problem in outer space is the lack of oxygen, due to the lack of which you will lose consciousness within 10-15 seconds. The claim seems dubious, especially considering that each of us can hold our breath for at least 30 seconds. The thing is that when we stop breathing on Earth, we have a little air left in our lungs, which supports us for some time. In space, the situation is completely different. The vacuum of space “sucks out” absolutely all the oxygen, “shrinking” the lungs. Moreover, as soon as the body is deprived of air, the lungs will begin to work in the opposite direction, pumping oxygen out of the blood, which will bring oxygen starvation even closer.
2. Due to the lack of external pressure, some of the person's external blood vessels (such as those in the eyes) will begin to burst and the skin will swell.
3. As we have already said, saliva and moisture will begin to boil and evaporate before your eyes.
4. Exposed areas of the body will receive severe burns from ultraviolet radiation from the Sun.

All of the above symptoms will occur after just 10 seconds of being in outer space. Scientists believe that A 30-second stay in space without a spacesuit will not cause serious health problems, but after 1-2 minutes, the damage will become irreversible.

There are many myths about what can happen to a person who finds himself in outer space without a protective suit. There are different versions, but today you will find out which of them are really probable and which are just fiction.

A person will not freeze instantly

Cooling or heating occurs as a result of thermal radiation or contact with a cold external environment.

In space, in a vacuum, there is nothing to contact with; there is neither a cold nor a hot external environment. There is only very rarefied gas present. Thermos flasks, for example, use vacuum to retain heat. A person without a spacesuit will not feel the burning cold, since he will not be in contact with the cold substance.

It will take a long time to freeze

The human body, once in a vacuum, will gradually begin to give up its heat through radiation. The walls of the thermos flask are made mirror-like to retain heat for as long as possible. The heat transfer process is quite slow. Therefore, even in the absence of a spacesuit, but if you have some clothing, the heat will remain longer.

Space tan

But getting a tan in space is very possible. If a person finds himself in space at a relatively close distance from a star, then a burn may appear on his exposed skin, as if from excessive exposure to the sun on the beach. If a person is located somewhere in the orbit of our planet, then the effect will be much stronger than on the beach, since there is no atmosphere that protects from exposure to ultraviolet rays. Just ten seconds will be enough to cause a fairly severe burn. But clothing should protect a person in such a situation, and there is no need to panic about a hole in a helmet or spacesuit.

Boiling saliva

It is known that the boiling point of liquids directly depends on pressure. Because the lower the pressure level, the correspondingly lower the boiling point. So in a vacuum, liquids will gradually begin to evaporate. Scientists were able to draw this conclusion based on their experiments. Saliva will sooner or later boil, since there is practically no pressure and the temperature in the mouth is 36 degrees. Most likely, all mucous membranes will suffer the same fate. If mucus is not renewed from the body, then the mucous membranes will dry out.

By the way, if you conduct a similar experiment with a large volume of water, then the result is expected to be different. Most likely you will see the effect of dry ice, where the inside freezes and the outside evaporates. Presumably, a water ball in space will partially freeze and partially evaporate.

Will the blood boil?

Elastic skin, heart and blood vessels can protect a person from boiling blood in space. They will create enough pressure to prevent the blood from boiling.

Is the “champagne effect” possible?

Most likely, a person in space can avoid this trouble. Decompression sickness sometimes overtakes scuba divers as a result of the impact on their body of a sharp decrease in pressure. In this case, gases dissolve in human blood.

This process is similar to what happens in a bottle of champagne. As the pressure decreases, the gases turn into small bubbles. In champagne, dissolved carbon dioxide comes out of the liquid, and in the case of scuba divers, nitrogen comes out.

But this effect is observed with pressure drops of several atmospheres. When a person enters a vacuum, there is a difference of only one atmosphere. This is most likely not enough to turn blood into champagne.

The air in the lungs will burst

Presumably, the person will exhale the air inside and therefore will not rupture. Is there a possibility that you might not be able to exhale air? Let’s say the pressure in the spacesuit is one atmosphere, this corresponds to ten kilograms per square centimeter. When you try to hold your breath, the air will be blocked by the soft palate. If we assume that its area is at least two square centimeters, then the load is forty kilograms. It is unlikely that the sky will be able to withstand such a load, so a person will be forced to exhale like a deflating balloon.

Will the person suffocate?

This is the main real threat to humans in space, in which there is absolutely nothing to breathe. The most trained divers can survive without air for only a few minutes, and a person without special training can survive for about a minute. But these numbers are correct for holding air during inhalation. And in space a person will have to exhale, as we noted earlier.

While exhaling, a person can hold out for about thirty seconds. And in space it’s even less. The time after which a person will lose consciousness from suffocation is known - it is approximately fourteen seconds.