What if you go into space without an astronaut suit?

Published: 9/8/2020

Author: Andrea Garma

Despite there being a lot of speculation about the reactions that the human body would have to such conditions, a lot of them coming from our imagination or from science fiction movies, the truth is that it would be a horrifyingly amazing spectacle. Let's break down the process of exposing the human body to the vacuum and some variations on the main event.

Temperature and radiation

In the first instance, let's divide two main scenarios. Scenario one is located at a distance close to the planet earth, in that section where the shaded face of the celestial body is located, the temperature of space at this distance is close to -156 ° C. Despite the fact that space is empty and there is no propagation measure, remember that heat can be transferred by means of radiation, that electromagnetic radiation emitted by the human body. Body temperature would take about 72 minutes to drop from 36ºC to 20ºC, that is, 958 Joules per second. Placing ourselves on the illuminated face, in case number two, where there is illumination by a star, the behavior of the temperature would change, since your skin would be damaged by ultraviolet rays, and your body would heat up, since you would receive an energy of 1,368 Joules per second and you would only spend 479 Joules per second.

Internal fluids

Being exposed to vacuum implies a variation in the behavior of substances and their boiling temperature, in the case of body fluids, they boil - they do not necessarily heat up, but they reach certain thermal and pressure conditions that cause them to turn into gas -. By turning our internal fluids into gas, our body would swell up to twice its size. This means that no, definitely your cause of death in space would not be to explode as a balloon, since this phase is not lethal, on the contrary, the effects of a vacuum exposure of up to 90 seconds can be reversible.

Lungs

Within 15 seconds of your exposure to space, your body would lose awareness of the events, as your lungs would run out of oxygen reserves, and your death would conclude after 2 minutes, when your organs collapse or fail due to lack of precious oxygen, without being able to be aware of all the events that your body has yet to experience.

Has anyone suffered a death like that?

A death from full exposure, such as being stranded without a spacesuit, has not happened as such in the history of space travel. However, in 1971, the Russian spacecraft that was part of the Soyuz-11 mission suffered a ruptured seal upon entering the atmosphere, killing three crew members by depressurization, that is, death by asphyxiation.

References

https://cienciadesofa.com/2015/11/que-pasa-salgo-espacio-sin-traje-espacial.html

https://www.muyinteresante.com.mx/espacio/que-sucede-cuerpo-espacio/