If you choose a reliable way to perish, science fiction writers recommend being thrown into the cosmic vacuum - it works, with no chance of salvation. Throw a rebel lieutenant through the airlock, or find a sudden crack in the glass of a spacesuit, and the usual scriptwriter's victim dies quickly and calmly, albeit without the explosive effects Michael Bay loves so much.
In reality, animal experiments and human cases have shown that humans can possibly withstand a vacuum for several minutes. Not that they stay conscious long enough to save themselves, but if you happen to find yourself in such a predicament, the other crew members may have time to save you and return you to normal pressure with little health consequences.
“In any system, there is always the possibility of equipment failure, leading to injury or death. This is a common risk you face in a hostile environment when you depend on equipment near you,”says Jay Bucky, professor at Dartmouth Medical School and former NASA astronaut. “But if you can get to someone quickly, good. Often, spacewalks are carried out by two astronauts, between whom there is continuous communication. Therefore, if someone has problems, the other may be able to get a colleague and drag him to the ship."
The vacuum is indeed fatal: at very low pressure, the air trapped in the lungs expands, tearing the delicate gas exchange tissues. This is especially fraught if you hold your breath or inhale deeply when the pressure drops. The water in the soft tissues of the body evaporates, causing severe swelling, although the tight lining of your skin will prevent your body from shattering into pieces. Eyes are also unlikely to explode, but prolonged leakage of gas and water vapors will rapidly cool the mouth and airways.
Water and dissolved gas in the blood form bubbles in the major veins that spread throughout the circulatory system and block blood flow. The circulation stops after about a minute. Lack of oxygen in the brain will make you unconscious in just 15 seconds, and then kill you. “When the pressure drops very low, there is simply not enough oxygen. This is the first and most important problem,”says Bucky.
But death does not come instantly. For example, one study in 1965 at Brooks Air Force Base in Texas found that dogs exposed to near-vacuum - one three-hundred-eighty of the atmospheric pressure at sea level - for up to 90 seconds always survived. During the exposure, they were unconscious and paralyzed. Gas expelled from the intestines and stomach caused simultaneous bowel movements, vomiting, and urination. There were seizures. The tongues were often covered with ice and the dogs swelled, becoming like an "inflated bag of goatskin," the authors wrote. But after increasing the pressure, the dogs deflated, began to breathe and after 10-15 minutes they could walk, although partial blindness passed a little later.
However, if dogs were overexposed in a vacuum - two full minutes or more - they often died. If the heart did not beat after recompression, they could not be reanimated, and the faster the decompression was, the more serious the injuries were, no matter how much time passed in a vacuum.
Chimpanzees can withstand even longer exposure. In two NASA articles from 1965 and 1967, scientists showed that chimpanzees can survive up to 3.5 minutes of near-vacuum state without obvious consequences for the brain, judging by the complex tasks that were performed later. One chimpanzee that was in a vacuum for three minutes, however, showed a change in behavior. Another died, probably from cardiac arrest.
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While most of the knowledge about the effects of vacuum exposure has come from animal experiments, there have also been several informative - and creepy - cases of leakage involving humans. In 1965, a technician in a vacuum chamber at the Space Center. Johnson in Houston accidentally depressurized his spacesuit by knocking off a hose. After 12-15 seconds, he lost consciousness. 27 seconds after his suit was re-compressed to half the pressure at sea level, he regained consciousness. The man said that the last thing he remembered before switching off was how the moisture on the tip of his tongue boiled, at the same time the taste was lost for several days, otherwise everything was in order.
In general, if you suddenly find yourself in the interstellar environment for a short time, you can survive it, but you definitely will not like it.
ILYA KHEL