Unprotected body in space

I’ve always been curious about what would happen if a person went into space unprotected from the condition of ~the interstellar infinite~.  

‘What happens’ has always intrigued me, and I think that learning about what it’s actually like in space has made me more curious/flabbergasted/horrified about the entire place. Sometimes I look around the bus and think “HOW are you not ALL THINKING ABOUT HOW BIG SPACE IS, RIGHT NOW. AND ALWAYS.

What space is like

Space is a much simpler environment than Hollywood’s presentation. It does not glow with hazy blue light, dispersed throughout myriad gentle, ponderously drifting balls of rock. Because there is no atmosphere to transmit them, there are no deep synth soundscapes or any high-tech pings or any noises what so ever.

It is an unimaginably massive, stark, completely empty void where once in a while a piece of rock the size of OUR PLANET hurtles by (utterly silently) at 50 million kilometres per hour, fueled by billion-year old forces.

What would happen 

What you’ve seen on television and in movies is nothing like the actual thing. There is no boiling of blood, no instant freezing, and definitely no gasping last breaths. It would take almost 90 seconds for an exposed human to die, and you’d be conscious for the first 14-15 seconds. The fantastical effects of silver-screen space exposure do have roots in reality, though- if you were to make the mistake of trying to hold your breath, your mouth would snap open and your lungs would violently explode inwards, frantically trying to equalize with an infinite void. Your blood wouldn’t boil, though the lack of pressure on your skin (that we usually have from gases in our atmosphere) would cause the liquid water in your system to form water vapor in your tissues and you’d swell up like a cartoon character pinioned on a bike pump.

Similarly, because there is no medium for heat to travel through, space is actually an amazing insulator and keeps heat IN- astronauts have a much larger issue dealing with overheating than they do with protecting themselves from cold. 

Space exposure isn’t that dangerous, in small amounts- there was even an instance on a 1991 space flight where a small metal rod came loose from within an astronaut’s suit, moved to his finger and punctured a small hole in his suit. His skin sealed the tear, and when he returned to the ship, all he noticed was a small red mark he attributed to chafing. NUTS, RIGHT?? Even if you were to punch a 1 cm² hole in an average-sized spacecraft (ie: volume of 10 m³) would take almost six minutes to decompress to half-pressure.

In closing, I hope you have learned something you can nerdily point out next time you’re with your friends, watching see someone get tossed out of an airlock on your favourite space opera. It’s bad, but it ain’t that bad.