TECH: SF Writers, Take Note. What does "spacing" do?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting: Fri, 15 Apr 1994 18:35:01 JST

extracted from the "Space FAQ"

- HOW LONG CAN A HUMAN LIVE UNPROTECTED IN SPACE

- If you *don't* try to hold your breath, exposure to space for half a
- minute or so is unlikely to produce permanent injury. Holding your
- breath is likely to damage your lungs, something scuba divers have to
- watch out for when ascending, and you'll have eardrum trouble if your
- Eustachian tubes are badly plugged up, but theory predicts -- and animal
- experiments confirm -- that otherwise, exposure to vacuum causes no
- immediate injury. You do not explode. Your blood does not boil. You do
- not freeze. You do not instantly lose consciousness.

- Various minor problems (sunburn, possibly "the bends", certainly some
- [mild, reversible, painless] swelling of skin and underlying tissue)
- start after ten seconds or so. At some point you lose consciousness from
- lack of oxygen. Injuries accumulate. After perhaps one or two minutes,
- you're dying. The limits are not really known.

So your hero(ine), if they relax, exhale, and keep their wits about them, should have 30 seconds or so, at least, to handle the situation. Plenty of time for any red-blooded author to have them whip up an emergency spaceship (capable of faster-than-light travel, natchurly - and supplied with a useful variety of odds and ends for facing later crises) just using some leftover cans and other junk drifing in the vicinity! If MacGyver could do it, you can too!

(this TECH note brought to you by the truth in fiction committee in hopes of reviving the fading art of space opera - it ain't over until the last evil overlord is squelched, you know)