Thursday 19 September 2019

thermodynamics - What would actually happen to a person jettisoned into space?


Alright, so we have all seen the movies where someone gets blasted out of the airlock on their starship, or their suit decompresses while on a space walk. The poor schmoe usually either decompresses so violently that blood is oozing out of every orifice in their body, or they freeze instantly.


From this I have two questions:



  1. Would the decompression really be that violent?

    1. Clearly the drastic difference in pressure from a normal "earth" like environment to space would be bad, but would it be that devastating.

    2. I vaguely remember that standard atmospheric pressure was something like 15 psi, which doesn't seem like enough to mess you up that bad.




  2. Would you actually freeze instantly in space?

    1. Heat, or lack thereof is a measure of internal energy, but in a vacuum there wouldn't be anything to have internal energy, so does space even have a temperature?

    2. Wouldn't some form of matter have to be present in order to cool off? If there were no matter besides yourself and a few stray particles here and there, it seems like it would take a very long time to cool off.






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