WEBVTT - Nude Space Walk 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:05.960 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.960 --> 0:00:14.040 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff the Ball your Mind. 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:17.079 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas, and 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:18.840 we would like for you to just just take a 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:25.480 moment to imagine Benjamin Franklin in space. Now, Benjamin Franklin 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:29.360 had his uh, with his old timy clothes on. Oh yes, yes, 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:32.120 the whole nine yards. We're not going to skimp on this. 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:35.920 Benjamin Franklin in space. We want a hundreds Benjamin Franklin 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:40.080 in space. That means uh, you know, the experiments, the 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:46.199 the the the proclivity for for French ladies of ill repute, 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:50.600 mac and cheese, mac and cheese. Oh sorry, that was 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:54.520 Thomas Jefferson. Yeah, and kind of like mac and cheese. Okay, 0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:57.560 I'm seeing this. I'm seeing him holding onto a kite yep, 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:01.280 maybe maybe maybe not, And I'm seeing him with his 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:05.800 space suit on over his old timey clothes, but then 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:08.880 walking out onto the the exterior area of the ship 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:13.880 for his his air bath. I knew, I knew you 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:15.959 were going to take us there, Robert lamp. When you 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:20.160 say air bath, you mean a jaunt in the nude yes, 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:22.640 because because ben Ben Franklin, of course, he he was 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:25.160 a big fan of of sleeping half the night through 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:28.200 than getting up and uh spending a little time just 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:30.880 setting around in the buff in the open air, reading 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:33.000 a little bit, and then getting tired of getting going 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:35.480 back to bed. And there there's there's a lot of 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:36.800 there are a lot of studies that show that this 0:01:36.840 --> 0:01:41.240 is probably actually a very reasonable way to sleep. The 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:44.600 nude reading is you know, left to the individuals. I 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:46.040 was going to say that the getting up in the 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:48.400 middle of the night and sort of maximizing sleep patterns, 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:52.200 not necessarily taking an air bath, as he called it, nude. Now, 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:55.440 of course, there's no air outside of his spaceship. Um 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:58.320 So if Benjamin Franklin did venture out of the airlock 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:02.000 in the buff, what would happen? You know? Would would 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:06.920 eyeballs would bulge, he would explode into a million meat pieces, yes, 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:10.640 and froze, he would freeze and shatter. That's the thing 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:13.760 we've we've seen so many different versions of what this 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:18.079 might consist of in science fiction and if you look 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:20.000 look at the various things that have been written about 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:23.519 it too, from even from a scientific perspective. Um, it 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:26.399 can get a little confusing at times because our ideas 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:29.640 are sort of shifted over time and uh and and 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:32.360 some some things that we thought would happen haven't really happened. 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:35.560 And thankfully it's not something we have a tremendous amount 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:38.680 of data on, because we we aren't just throwing naked 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:42.200 astronauts out the airlock in space. We're not doing a 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:46.160 whole bunch of horrific decompression experiments just to see what 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:49.400 would happen in these cases. Instead, we're taking all due 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:53.480 precautions with our our astronauts and ensuring that these highly 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:59.120 valuable individuals can carry on their daily task in safety. Yeah. 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:01.679 And so we we thought we would take this uh 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:06.120 sci fi trope that's death by vacuum and really examine 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:09.040 it and see what would happen and the various ways 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:11.960 that that we do try to protect our astronauts. Yeah. 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:14.120 So a good starting place for this system to mention 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:16.919 just a few of them, the more notable examples that 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:20.000 will refer back to as we progress. First of all, 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:23.000 there is two thousand and one of Space Odyssey, which 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:26.920 we often mentioned and everyone pretty much often mentions is 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:29.520 one of the best sci fi films of all time, 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:31.840 and really there's nothing like it. I recently watched it 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:35.480 again and it's just it's stunning and uh and long 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:40.080 and a little confusing, but I mean, all these things disorienting, 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:43.760 and it just makes you think it's it's psychedelic, it's 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:48.360 it's as at times it's it's it's hard science fiction 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:50.720 in a way that it feels so real, that feels 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:53.680 more real than it feels like a more real version 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:55.880 of the future, a more genuine version of the future 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:59.160 than we actually have grown into. And then and then 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:02.000 there's other stuff in it that is just completely out there, 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:05.560 that's just you know, the mind meeting the unknown. But 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:10.240 there is one scene in which, after not Dave Bowman, Uh, Dave, 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:12.480 what are you doing? Dave? That Dave, you can do 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:15.320 the Dave voice, do it, Dave, what are you doing? Dave? 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:18.479 Are you taking off your clothes and going for spacewalk? 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:20.680 Well he doesn't do it in the nude, but he's 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:23.840 space walks for about fifteen seconds with no helmet, and uh, 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:26.880 it doesn't appear to cause him any pain. Uh. He 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:30.240 re enters the Discovery through an open hatch and just 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:32.719 carries on. And the modern viewers that he just comes 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:35.760 up like a complete badass because he's just he's unfazed 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:37.279 by it. He's just like, all right, it just drifted 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:39.560 through the void, no helmet on. Now I'm good to go. 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:42.440 I'm gonna go shut down this computer. So there's that version. 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:47.080 Then there's there's Mission to Mars, in which Tim Robbins 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:50.960 takes his helmet off and his face like instantly freezes 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:55.760 and distorts and he's dead just in a second. Um, 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:58.200 which is I think a typical response to watching that 0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:02.000 movie and its entirety as well. Um, there's Outland, which 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:05.080 is really a very enjoyable film. I don't know if 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:07.560 you've seen this. When this one is a shot, it's 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:10.600 it's great because you have Sean Connery as the good 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:13.520 guy and I think believe Peter Boyle plays the villain. 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:15.760 And it's like a mining colony in space. It's basically 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:18.560 a space Western. I mean, it is a straight up 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:21.080 space Western, and it's a hell of a lot of fun. 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:26.560 I have secretly hope that Nicholas winding Refin will we'll 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:28.360 do a remakeup it. It will probably never happen, but 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:30.279 I think it would be great for it. But there's 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:33.120 are a whole bunch of scenes where uh, guys in 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:36.160 space suits are shot. It ruptures their suit and then 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:39.040 their heads swell up like a balloon and then pop 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:42.960 and it's you know, and to to the modern viewer, 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:45.200 it's it's it's a lot of fun, but as we'll discuss, 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:48.840 it's complete hooey as far as what would actually happen. Um. 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:52.480 There's the movie Event Horizon, which, uh, it's a supernatural 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:57.360 space film that teenage Robert Lamb loved, could not get 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:00.560 enough of. Modern Robert Lamb that does not really want 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:03.400 to see it again. But in this film, a character 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:07.240 passes through the space without a suit briefly and he survives, 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:10.560 but it's a very traumatic experience and I believe he 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.240 suffered some sort of blindness from it. Um and they 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:15.840 are also I believe they prep him by getting him 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:17.760 to it to push all the air out of his 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:22.239 lungs before he goes. Now. In Sunshine, communications Officer Harvey 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:25.920 tries to jump from one spaceship to another, and he 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:27.800 tries to do it without a suit and doesn't quite 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:33.160 make it, and within a minute or so his his 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:35.479 arm is really so brittle that it breaks off like 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:37.880 an icicle. Yeah, which makes for a good cinem I mean, 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:41.440 you know, Danny Boyle is a great filmmaker. So Sunshine 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:44.440 is a beautiful film to watch, but not not all 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:46.120 the science. It's gonna really line up. But some of 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:50.880 the things that you're hearing already swelling, freezing, Uh what 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:55.240 else is there any other swelling, freezing, exploding? Um? I 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:57.000 don't know if any of these another ones we looked 0:06:57.040 --> 0:06:59.920 at really went into burning, but that is a concern. 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:02.480 Would be easy to say, oh, you would just catch fire, 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:04.839 or one you wouldn't catch fire, but I don't know, 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:06.800 you would just turn into beef jerky. I guess could 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:09.240 be another possible example, and I'm sure somebody has used 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:12.200 that somewhere in science fiction, right, although we don't get 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:13.960 that's not an angle that comes up much, but it 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:16.400 is a real possibility, So I could see it being 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:19.040 a possible distortion of what could happen. Is right, And 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:22.160 these distortions really do have some basis to them. It 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:23.720 does not mean that if you were to take off 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:25.800 your space suit that you would explode, but it does 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:27.680 mean that there's a measure of swelling going on in 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:30.040 the body. And we'll get more into that. But I 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:32.800 think that's what's so intriguing about this idea, that's a death, 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:36.400 death by vacuum. Yes, so at this point we should 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:38.120 we should take a step back and let's say, let's 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:40.120 look at space itself. Let's look at the void and 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:44.280 discuss exactly what this environment is. And then we'll say, well, 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:48.240 we'll answer the question what would this do to an 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:50.800 individual without a space suit, an individual without a helmet, 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:55.520 or indeed a naked Benjamin Franklin just floating about without restraint, 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:58.480 with with less restraint than usual. Well, um, one of 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:00.360 the things I wanted to mention all the it has 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:03.200 really no impact on whether or not someone would explode 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:06.120 in space without a space suit. Is sound? Okay, there 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:08.800 is no sound in space, right. Sound travels by making 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:11.600 molecules vibrate, So in order for sound travel, there has 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:15.320 to be something with molecules fort to travel through. On Earth, 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:19.360 sound travels to your ears by vibrating air molecules. In 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:22.160 deep space, the large empty areas between stars and plants, 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:25.560 there are no molecules to vibrate. There is no sound, 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:30.360 making it that much more creepy for our sci fi 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:33.480 body explosion to happen. Yeah, in space, no one can 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:36.360 hear you scream. Right, that's the that's the Aliens tagline, right, 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:39.920 that's it, that's his tagline. So yeah, So in space 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:42.520 we have the void, we have a vacuum. So first 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:45.880 of all, obviously there's no oxygen. That's just the no brainer. 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:48.760 But of course there's furthermore, there's no atmosphere. There's no 0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:52.679 atmospheric pressure hugging you in. We've discussed in the podcast 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:55.760 we just recorded about emotions in space that of course 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:58.320 here on Earth there is air pressure. There's all this 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:00.240 heavy air doesn't seem like it has any eight or 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:02.480 pressure to it, but it's constantly pressing in on us. 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:05.480 It's hugging us. It's like a corset that we have 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:07.920 worn so long we no longer realize we're wearing it. 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:11.800 But take that corset off and stuff is just gonna 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:14.480 float free. That's right, because there is an absence of 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:20.880 matter in space. Also, the temperature it's cold, Yeah, it's uh, certainly, 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:24.920 space itself doesn't really have a temperature because it's just 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:28.880 the void. So I mean, here's the thing. When it 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:31.480 comes to heat transfer, they're basically three ways that it 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:36.640 takes place, there's radiation, there's convection, and there's conduction. Radiation 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:39.200 is the only method of heat transfer for objects in 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:42.880 a vacuum. So you end up in the situation where, 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:45.560 even though the void around you is not going to be, 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:49.480 you know, pressing up against you with some temperature, you're 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:55.440 exposed to some really severe uh examples of temperature variation 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:58.720 uh in terms of really cold stuff and then also 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:02.440 really hot uh. The heat coming from the radiation. For instance, 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:05.440 uh NASA's bulky white space shoot suits that they wear 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:08.000 in the spacewalks. So let's say you're out there, you're working. 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:11.920 Let's say you've got your back turned to cold, dead space, 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:16.960 and then your your front is turned towards the sun. Well, 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:19.840 they have found that there can be upwards of a 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:23.680 two hundred and seventy five degree farenheight difference from one 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:26.839 side to the other, just based on where you're you're 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:29.080 facing just that kind of an extreme. So the white 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:32.760 is reflective and you're not absorbing that heat. Right. It's 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:35.240 another One of the other things that springs to mind too, 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:39.600 is a lunar dust. Back when we were sending people 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:41.559 to the Moon, you had to be concerned with the 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:43.800 fact that are you have this this white uh space, 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:47.960 and it's reflecting all of this solar radiation. So it's uh, 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:50.800 you know, it's keeping you from absorbing all of this heat. 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:54.560 Uh you're reflecting it, but get coated in some dark 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:57.599 moon dust and suddenly you'll start absorbing it and it 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:00.280 could bake you alive. Not a good way to go. 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:02.160 Not a good way to go. Uh. And that's not 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:05.240 really a plot line you see much and stuff by movies. No, 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:06.679 but it could be used as a weapon. I mean, 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:10.400 that's it's it's it's an underutilized idea there. You know. 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:12.360 It's like all you need is a black paint gun. 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:15.280 It goes without saying that in a vacuum, most liquids 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:18.560 have a such a low boiling point that they vaporize 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:20.720 almost instantly. But that is a reminder that we just 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:24.920 don't have moisture floating around in space. In fact, in 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:29.080 the past, when astronauts have urinated, the results were expelled 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:33.040 into space where it boiled violently, and then the vapor 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:36.319 then passed immediately into a solid state. It's a process 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:39.360 known as d sublimation, and you end up with a 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:44.080 cloud of really fine crystals of frozen urine, which is 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:46.760 sort of a beautiful thing. Yeah, yeah, I've I've heard 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:50.280 it described as being fairly beautiful. In fact, I think 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:53.880 that some astronauts had mistaken those crystals for distant stars. 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:58.439 There's some accounts of that name them after themselves. Yeah, 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:00.920 all right, But you've touched on something with the with 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:03.600 the with the liquids boiling, because because you often hear 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.200 the idea too that oh, if you're exposed to the void, 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:09.240 your blood would boil and you would just it would 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:11.160 just be this awful mess like and I mean just 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:14.120 that idea of boiling blood is just hellish and awful, 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:16.480 and it you can see where people would really get 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:18.880 attached to the notion. So you have these visions, you know, 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:21.560 if the blood boiling in the skin and like you know, 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:24.680 blood vapor coming out of people or making you inflate 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:27.400 and explode, and of course that's that's not going to 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:31.120 happen um because of the containing effect of the skin 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:33.880 in the circulatory system. So you swell a bit naked, 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:37.000 Benjamin Franklin would kind of bloat a little bit. But 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:40.200 the but the body, yeah, more, but the body itself 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:42.280 is its own kind of precious suit for this kind 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:46.160 of thing, And and it keeps dissolved tissues in a 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:49.560 liquid stage, so only body flu is directly exposed to 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:54.120 the vacuum would actually boil away. And uh, marriage says 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:57.240 has happened to a NASA test subject a leaky space 0:12:57.280 --> 0:12:59.760 suit in an altitude chamber. The last thing he recalled 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:02.400 before of losing consciousness with the sensation of his saliva 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:05.000 bubbling on its tongue, which is kind of awful and 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:07.320 cool at the same time. Um, let's talk about space 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:09.280 suits real quick, just because I want to talk about 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:12.480 how they do actually protect astronauts of space. They have 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:15.840 pressurized atmosphere, so the space suit provides air pressure to 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:17.760 keep the fluids in your body in a liquid state. 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:21.760 Oxygen space suits must apply pure oxygen because of a 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:25.719 low pressure, and then of course you've got regulated temperature. 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:29.079 Now let's take a quick break, and when we get 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:31.440 back we can talk about what happens when you strip 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:45.360 off a space suit. All right, we're back. So we've 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:48.880 been talking about some of the science fiction ideas about 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:50.880 what happens when you take your space suit off in 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:55.200 the void. We've mentioned some of the attributes of the 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:59.920 void there's no air, there's no pressure, that the solar 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:04.280 adiation can just quickly heat things up a whole lot 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:08.600 to two pretty uh hellish temperatures. And then likewise that 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:11.839 there's the cold, chilling void to concern yourself with as well. 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:15.040 So we've been taught tackling the question what what would 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:18.040 actually happen? What actually does happen when the body's exposed 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:21.160 to this kind of environment. Well, you rip off your 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:24.600 space suit and you get about fifteen seconds some saying 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:28.480 between nine and leven depending uh, and that is about 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:33.240 roughly how much time it takes for deoxygenated blood to 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:35.680 circulate from your lungs to your brain. So when I 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:39.880 say you get fifteen seconds, fifteen seconds of consciousness left. Yeah, 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:42.880 and this is going to be the big kicker, you know, 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:44.960 for for what's happening out there. This is ultimately going 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:48.040 to be the factor for a niked Benjamin Franklin on 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:51.880 the exterior, right. I mean it's kind of awful because 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:54.080 it could be fifteen seconds where you witness your demise, 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:57.000 or it could be fifteen seconds. Uh And if someone 0:14:57.040 --> 0:14:59.640 can act quickly, well, then you could be resuscitated. It 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:03.120 is possible. Um, But The deal is is that the 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:08.680 sucking the air from your lungs is part of why shoot. 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:10.880 But the deal is is that the sucking the air 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:13.120 from your lungs is is really part and parcel of 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:16.240 why your demise would come on. See, when you're placed 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:19.680 in a vacuum, the gas exchange process works and reverse 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:22.600 your lyngs actually pull oxygen out of the body and 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:25.720 dump it back into the lungs where it's exhaled, which 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:29.800 only serves to hasten the onset of hypoxia. Yeah. Yeah, 0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:32.960 the the air rushes out explosively even and can really 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:35.840 damage the lungs in the throat. Um. And it's all 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:40.120 because of this tremendous pressure differential inside versus the outside. Yeah. 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:42.960 And as you had mentioned, Um, the the spit any 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:44.960 sort of liquid on your tongue and sweat on your 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:48.360 body would boil away. Um. This has been described as 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:51.440 a fizzy feeling like drinking soda and water. Vapor will 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:54.800 form rapidly in the soft tissues and somewhat less rapidly 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:58.120 in the venous blood, causing swelling. So there's this idea 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:00.600 of you know, our sci fi idea of exp loading. Yeah, 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:02.520 and also it comes back to that, I believe it 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:06.000 is the event horizon um scene where they said, make 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:07.920 sure you get all the air out of your lungs 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:11.200 because you're about to be exposed to the void. Yeah, 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:14.480 apparently holding your breath makes it worse. Yes, do not 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:17.680 hold your breath when exposed to a vacuum. Um. The 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:20.160 number of other factors that they can come into play. 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:22.920 I mean, this can essentially give you the bends. They 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:26.120 can force the air bubbles into your blood vessels. Uh. 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:27.880 There a whole lot of nasty things that can happen 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:30.840 to the human body without even getting into the realm 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:34.800 of exploding heads. You know, just the moisture in your nose, eyes, 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:39.400 and mouth that evaporates, causing localized frost bite. As you 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:43.400 had mentioned before, exposed skin begins to burn, um, so 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:47.120 you get an extreme uh sunburn, your dermal tissues begin 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:49.520 to swell. And when it comes to the idea of 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:53.600 freezing or turning into beef jerokee. Well, first of all, 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:55.920 it's it's worth noting that that you would have to 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:58.800 worry about getting a pretty bad sunburn if you were 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:00.680 out there without a suit. But in terms of like 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:03.920 freezing solid and chattering like in sunshine or going all 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:06.840 of you know, frozen face like Tim Robbins uh in 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:09.879 Mission to Mars. Uh. Here's a quick quote from a 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:12.480 fill over at bad Astronomer, and he says, the human 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:14.640 body holds a lot of heat, and it would take 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:17.000 a long time to freeze. Have you ever found yourself 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:19.840 literally freezing solid when you go outside on a winter's day? No, 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:22.600 of course not yet. Losing heat by transferring it to 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:25.359 cold air is far faster than doing so by simply 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:28.200 radiating it away as you would in space. If it 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:30.440 takes a long time in frigid air, it would take 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:34.840 even longer in frigid space. So there you have it. 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:37.879 As far as the idea of shattering astronauts, uh, it 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:39.960 would take you would have to find an astronaut e 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:42.280 that been floating free for quite a bit before they're 0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:45.560 going to actually just you know, break into pieces. Right right, 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:48.880 your body is gonna cool slowly, relatively coolly, uh or slowly, 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:51.719 I should say. And then the hypoxia that you experience 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:53.720 really does have its own set of issues, including a 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:56.960 loss of vision of course, wits at that point, followed 0:17:56.960 --> 0:18:02.120 by convulsions, um, lots of consciousness and uh, cyanosis when 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:04.359 your skin turns blue. So at this point you're not 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:07.040 dead really, Um, you're just kind of you're on your 0:18:07.040 --> 0:18:09.200 way there. Your brain is still functional, in your heart 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:12.400 is still going, and you can still be revived according 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:17.200 to NASA, with surprisingly minimal permanent injury if if you 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:20.600 are immediately returned to an atmosphere and this savior window 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:25.760 is only ninety seconds long. Now, there was an accidental 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:29.520 experiment with US, and NASA actually has us on the 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:32.640 website in the section that fields all the various questions 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:36.120 they get. They say, at NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center, which 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:39.320 is now renamed Jonathan Space Center, we had a test 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:43.240 subject accidentally exposed to a near vacuum in an incident 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:46.160 involving a leaking space suit in a vacuum chamber back 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:49.400 in sixty five. He remained conscious for about fourteen seconds, 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:53.800 and uh, they began to re pressurize the chamber within 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:58.000 fifteen seconds and then he regaining consciousness. So he was fine. 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:00.080 But you know, all those things did not have in 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:03.240 his blood to not boil his eyeballs, did not you know, 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:07.080 explode out of his head. Yeah, based on everything that 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:10.960 then we've been reading when you compare real life to fiction, 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:13.800 when you compare science to science fiction, the two thousand 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:17.600 and one example is pretty spot on, except he wouldn't 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:20.000 be so spotless on the other side. It would he 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:22.600 would look and feel like he'd kind of been beaten 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:26.120 up a lot more from that brief space walk. Um. Yeah, 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:27.879 because in addition to that swelling, you'd have a lot 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:29.920 of bruising as well. Yeah, so he'd be pretty battered. 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:31.760 He wouldn't just you know, shake it off, no matter 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:35.280 how you know, tough an astronaut he really is. Yeah, 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:38.080 So I Ben Franklin would be uh, he'd be okay. 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:40.199 That ninety two window a little worse for wear, but 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:43.200 he would be okay. Now I can't help but think 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:45.639 back to some stuff we talked about in our episode 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:49.399 the Werewolf Principle, where we talked about cyborgs in space. Uh, 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:52.280 cyborgs in space, of course, was this paper by Manford E. 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:56.560 Klins and Nathan S. Klein published in Astronautics in September 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:59.119 of nineteen sixty and it was pretty pivotal, like they 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:02.439 basically infinite the word cyborg um. And they were talking, 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:06.920 I mean, their whole thesis here was let us consider 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:10.920 changing the organism to meet the demands of a new environment, 0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:15.160 instead of bringing a portion of that organism's native environment 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:18.120 with them into hostile environments. In other words, the whole 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:21.359 problem with with the humans exposing themselves to the void 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:25.000 and suffering all this damage is because, surprise, surprise, we 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:28.080 are not meant we are we we are not meant, 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:30.760 we are not We have not evolved to live in 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:34.119 that kind of an environment. Um, So to what extent 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:38.440 could we change ourselves to better deal with an environment 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:40.679 like that? Here's a quick quote from that paper, just 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:43.439 to refresh everybody. They said, give man in space, in 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:46.119 addition to flying his vehicle, must continually be checking on 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:49.080 things and making adjustments, merely in order to keep himself alive. 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:51.919 He becomes a slave to the machine. The purpose of 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:55.879 the cyborg, as well as his own homeostatic systems, is 0:20:55.920 --> 0:20:59.359 to provide an organizational system in which such robot like 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:03.440 problems are taken care of automatically and unconsciously, leaving man 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:05.919 free to explore, to create, to think, and to feel. 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:09.280 So among the various things that that the author suggested, 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:14.800 uh they brought up enzymes enzyme tinkering to create anaerobic organisms. 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:18.200 In other words, astronauts that don't require air or can 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:23.359 live in different atmospheres lower body pressure to facilitate space walks. 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:26.160 I don't know about naked spacewalks, but to to make 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:29.720 it less of a you know, a differential um and 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:32.080