This thought hit me after a shower tonight. TV shows many different fates for folks who go on impromptu EVA's
but I always wondered how reliable their visions were.
Watch this link then you will, too.

http://mblogs.discovermagazine.com/badas...acuum-of-space/

The vast majority of tv shows and movies get it wrong by showing people with exploding heads, eyes popping out and stuff. Of course, it's portrayed that way for maximum dramatic effect.

I feel that the new Battlestar Galactica was fairly accurate in portraying what happens to people when they get sucked out an airlock.

So basically, you'd suffocate, in the same way that you'd suffocate in a fire long before burning to death.

I'm curious as to how long it would take for a warm human body to freeze in space though. Down here we're radiating out and absorbing radiation at the associated temperatures all the time, so the net wattage lost isn't that great. Out in space, you're letting it all out and not necessarily getting anything back (unless you're in the sunny side).

everybody knows that if you take a good lung full of air before you get shot out you've got 30 seconds to stick your thumb out and get another space ship to pick you up .. providing you have your towel of course!

Um... no.

All of the liquids and gases that can be sucked out would be. That includes the rupturing of any soft tissue exposed. That includes your eyes bursting, lips, tongue, cheeks, throat, stomach and whole digestive track. Then if any of those places tear or rip the cycle continues into the new cavity. Odds are good 70% of your body fluids would be sucks out of your body over the next 10-15 seconds which will more or less kill you. Luckily you should black out from it in the initial 2-5 seconds.

What is left is a mangled fluidless corpse that slowly radiates it's heat away over the next 2-5 hours until it is freeze dried.

Obviously that is if your whole body is exposed instantly.

Mmmmmmmmmmm. Jerky.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not disputing that this doesn't happen, nor that it would be rather painful. But, getting into the pointless detail, which one of those kills you first, or at least puts you past the point of no return?

The low pressure puts you into the bends almost instantly. So unless you have a hyperbaric chamber near by (which most space ships/stations should) you are pretty much SOL. Even if they get you back inside within 10 seconds and you are alive you will still die over the next hour or so in a very painful way. If they get you into treatment you should be fine...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decompression_sickness

If the bends are not a problem (from some sort of future tech maybe?) then you still have to deal with all the sacks in your lungs rupturing and all the oxygen being drained from your system along with the soft tissue fluids.

Is it really living if they have to remove your ruptured lungs, eyes, tongue, eardrums, intestines and other tissue exposed? All your teeth would fall out, your vocal cords would be gone and you would have massive damage (unfixable without future tech) to all your soft tissue exposed to the vacuum. Even if they can keep you alive after that you wont have much of a life to live.

Here is a way to think of it.

Take a towel and soak it in water. Then place it in a hefty garbage bag. The water represents all the important fluids your body needs to survive. Now close it with some air inside. Next cut a small hole and place a high powered shop vac in the hole and then make it air tight. Now turn the shop vac on for 10 seconds.

That is your body in space.

It is going to be painful.
You wont be awake for it.
You wont live after it.

I'm soaking up all the knowledge in this thread like an inquisitive sponge. Should I ever find myself in the nightmarish scenario of being pushed out of an airlock deep in Outer Space, I now realise that the breast stroke will not save me, and that resistance is truly futile.

Something you haven't considered though; what would happen if a Shaolin Monk or Ninja was pushed out of an airlock deep in outer space? Its well documented that they can do all manner of crazy mystical sh*t and have 'special powers' that enable them to have incredible, preternatural control over their bodily functions. Perhaps they could generate a "Chi" energy field allowing them to survive the ordeal, or at least buy them enough time to think "What the f*ck did they push me out of the airlock for? Bad Karma, maaaan."

Its thoughts like this that keep me up at night. Shaolin-Cyborg Monks in Space. *grabs notepad*. This one has "Blockbuster" written all over it. I feel inspired.