• Question: is it possible to stay in space for longer than a hour with out a space suit? :)

    Asked by antman to Christie, Dan, David, Dawn, Sian on 15 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: David Robertson

      David Robertson answered on 15 Jun 2016:

      Yes of course it is. However you will be very, very dead. You might survive for about a minute, but nobody would recommend it. The full horrible details are on wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_exposure

    • Photo: Dawn Lau

      Dawn Lau answered on 15 Jun 2016:

      Short answer – no!

    • Photo: Sian Thomas

      Sian Thomas answered on 15 Jun 2016:

      Not qualified to answer this but wouldn’t recommend it!

    • Photo: Christie Waddington

      Christie Waddington answered on 20 Jun 2016:

      Well scientists think that tiny animals called water bears could survive exposure to space :-). They really are small though, with the largest species only 1mm long! They’re special as they can withstand temperatures between -272oC and 150oC.

      In terms of humans though, its kind of strange.
      As you float around in space, the water in your body will expand to form a vapour because it doesn’t have the Earth’s atmospheric pressure. So you will expand like a balloon! This will also lower your blood pressure because your vessels would be a lot larger, which would also cause you to die.
      You would also be horribly burned by the exposure to the sun, especially since you wouldn’t have the ozone layer to protect you!
      You would also have no oxygen, so realistically you would last about 10seconds before you blacked out from low oxygen in the blood (hypoxia).
      In space, there is no humidity so any body fluids exposed (eyes, mouth, windpipe) will freeze over.
      Lastly the radiation from space would alter you cellular DNA and eventually lead to radiation poisoning.

      So, in terms of how long? As I said, you’d black out after 10seconds, and the probably die after about 90seconds.

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