h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Quite right Tango as regards heat. But why should the blood vessels explode? The human body is made up of 80% water, which for most practical purposes is incompressible. So the blood vessels would not react to the reductions in pressure. The air in the lungs or any gasses in the stomach would expand and most of that would be expelled naturally through one orifice or another.

So yes, it is possible to survive in a vacuum for a short period. 90 seconds is reckoned to be the limit.

Stuart

Pressure outside the blood vessels would be 0, pressure inside would be about 1 atm. That is enough for them to explode. Red Blood Cells will explode with just osmotic pressure after drinking too much water, so I don't think they would survive in a vacuum. 90 secs sounds about right to me, my gut feeling is its a little high, I'll look into it. I think I might stick with DNA's 30 second.

Jimster, tell the italics from me, that they had better read HHGG, or else... Who are we talking about here, BTW? I'm sure Peta and Jim have (and Mark, but he doesn't count anymore), Abi prob has, not sure about the rest, haven't had need of much contact with them. I'd be suprised if Anna hadn't, though. Am I right? ish?

Tango

Hi Tango,

I think don't think there would be enough gas absorbed in the blood to cause an explosion. Because of the incomprsabilty of a liquid, the only pressure exerted by the blood itself would be that supplied by the heart. The gasses would come out of solution and possibly cause a type of decompression sickness. See my article on that subject: A812747. The pressure difference between space and the earths surface is the same between the surface and 10 metres of water. People have done rapid ascents from 10 metres and deeper AND have suffered air embolisms and and like, but explosion - never. I don't know about osmotic pressure after drinking too much water casuing blood cells to explode. This is a different thing altogether caused by the fact that water is incompressible.

Did you see the link posted by NIRITA some time ago? That explains it all, especially what happened to those Russin astronaughts when the presurisation failed in their capsule. In that case the astronauts died from air embolisms.

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_147.html

Regards

Stuart

Stuart is right about the pressure, and wrong about the temperature. Temperature and heat are properties of matter. Stellar space contains some matter, the occasional lonely hydrogen molecule, so we can say that it has a temperature, which is very low. But the heat in the human body would not be transfered to this matter, it would _slowly_ radiate away.

Hi NAITA,

Sorry I spelt your name wrong, it won't happen again, I promise.

As regards temprature, I didnt say anything about temparature except to agree with Tango and he says the same thing as you do. That heat loss would be through radiation - slowly.

Strange thing heat loss. You can run around naked in an air temprature of 0 degrees C without feeling to uncomfortable. Do the same in water at a temprature of +5 degrees C and you are in serious trouble within minutes. That's conduction. Most heat loss in air is through convection.

Regards

Stuart

D'oh! Apologies all around. I have no idea why I was so certain all of a sudden that you had all written that you would freeze instantly. My bad.
And don't worry about the name, I didn't read it carefully enough to realise NIRITA was supposed to be my name.

Signed Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Alphabet (NAITA)

So, this entry would be factually inaccurate? There are odourless gases. Nitrogen and Oxygen are not smelly. You can easily get contaminants to a level undetectable by the human nose. Helium is not damaging. You won't get your insides sucked out in space.

Nice try, but try again, eh?
-Lucinda

Yup, unfortunately the Researcher has fallen off the edge of the Earth, or at least taken a vacation from posting. We can only hope he or she will return and give use something else interesting.

People interested in learning nothing could look at spook's entry here: A862797

thanks for the link!

i am looking into improving the entry soon (after i've done my GCSE mocks) and i may decide to include some stuff about the smell of nothing, however, i will take a different approach to it then this entry as i disagree with the main points:

nothing has a smell
nothing exists/only exists in space

please comment on my article as when i update my entry i'll look at all your comments and make a top notch entry!

aka spook

"Jimster, tell the italics from me, that they had better read HHGG, or else... Who are we talking about here, BTW? I'm sure Peta and Jim have (and Mark, but he doesn't count anymore), Abi prob has, not sure about the rest, haven't had need of much contact with them. I'd be suprised if Anna hadn't, though. Am I right? ish?"

Well, I know Ashley hasn't....

Just had an interesting thought... doesn't happen often and is probably quite controversial so you may want to hear it : Now since all these other sites have started popping up seem to stick with the agenda their name suggests, i.e the cult buffy page, I was wondering should h2g2 become a bit more interested in the work that is hitchhikers guide to the galaxy? Or maybe a seperate site for it should be set up?

*looks up in fear of "big brother" : "Please don't hit me oh great one, I didn't mean it". proceeds to get clipped round the ear for his troubles*

Terran

Good Article by the way *realising he is in peer review*. I think it will need more work on it to make it suitable for the guide - but the guts of the thing are there. Which is always a good start

Terran