Also important to note that the scale of these things can lead to intuitive misunderstandings. For example, if a meteor blows a meter-wide hole through the hull of an O’Neill cylinder, that intuitively sounds like a huge crisis. But in fact it’ll take weeks before enough air leaks out through a hole that size to become a problem. As an emergency patch all you need to do is drop a big manhole cover over it on the inside and the air pressure will seal it up against the hole quite tight, making it easier for the repair crew to weld a proper patch onto the actual hull.
There’d only be a one-atmosphere pressure differential, though. Wouldn’t be so bad, depending on which bit of your body gets stuck on the gap (don’t sit on it).
This is another thing Hollywood often gets wrong about the vacuum of space. If your spaceship gets a bullet hole in it you could do an emergency patch by sticking your finger in it and you’d be fine.
It’s one of the things I really enjoyed about the early episodes of The Expanse. Lots of attention paid to the hard science of space travel, especially compared to most sci-fi.
Inertia matters. Debris speeding at you from a nearby fight is just as dangerous as someone meaning to attack.
Stuck in a brig when an enemy ship railguns a softball sized hole through the ship you’re on? Slap the emergency manual three ring binder up against the hole to make a temporary seal.
It goes off further into less science backed stuff as time goes on, but I really appreciated the “hard science” base it built off of.
Ah that’s true! Quite different to water. Looking it up it seems you hit 2 atmospheres of pressure at only 20 m water depth. No wonder diving accidents are so serious. Sort of reassuring that space will kill you at a more leisurely pace.
In actual chamber accidents the people lost consciousness immediately. The one dude didn’t even know what had happened or why his ears were sore when they came to rescue him.
Not necessarily. If it’s a slow leak, you can go from fully functioning, to slightly lightheaded, to dead from hypoxia without any pain or even awareness of your situation.
The trope of flying through the debris/explosion of the ship you just blew up is kind of ridiculous. That’s the last place you want to go.
Finding micrometeorite holes would actually be harder than you would think because it’s only 1 atmosphere pressure leaking (or less, you don’t have to have 1 atm to exist comfortably). Might be easier to find them from the outside first and then map out where to look.
Those battle scenes where the rail gun shot were visibly going through and just missing…that was frightening. And remember, any shot that misses ruins someone else’s day later on.
Also important to note that the scale of these things can lead to intuitive misunderstandings. For example, if a meteor blows a meter-wide hole through the hull of an O’Neill cylinder, that intuitively sounds like a huge crisis. But in fact it’ll take weeks before enough air leaks out through a hole that size to become a problem. As an emergency patch all you need to do is drop a big manhole cover over it on the inside and the air pressure will seal it up against the hole quite tight, making it easier for the repair crew to weld a proper patch onto the actual hull.
Careful putting that manhole cover in place though! Delta-P is no joke
There’d only be a one-atmosphere pressure differential, though. Wouldn’t be so bad, depending on which bit of your body gets stuck on the gap (don’t sit on it).
This is another thing Hollywood often gets wrong about the vacuum of space. If your spaceship gets a bullet hole in it you could do an emergency patch by sticking your finger in it and you’d be fine.
It’s one of the things I really enjoyed about the early episodes of The Expanse. Lots of attention paid to the hard science of space travel, especially compared to most sci-fi.
Inertia matters. Debris speeding at you from a nearby fight is just as dangerous as someone meaning to attack.
Stuck in a brig when an enemy ship railguns a softball sized hole through the ship you’re on? Slap the emergency manual three ring binder up against the hole to make a temporary seal.
It goes off further into less science backed stuff as time goes on, but I really appreciated the “hard science” base it built off of.
Ah that’s true! Quite different to water. Looking it up it seems you hit 2 atmospheres of pressure at only 20 m water depth. No wonder diving accidents are so serious. Sort of reassuring that space will kill you at a more leisurely pace.
Relevant Futurama
:D
Yeah but it’ll hurt the whole time you’re dying. In an implosion like the sub, you’ll be dead before you even realize anything is happening.
In actual chamber accidents the people lost consciousness immediately. The one dude didn’t even know what had happened or why his ears were sore when they came to rescue him.
Not necessarily. If it’s a slow leak, you can go from fully functioning, to slightly lightheaded, to dead from hypoxia without any pain or even awareness of your situation.
Destin of SmarterEveryDay demonstrated this under controlled circumstances a few years back. (hypoxia demo starts around 4:30)
The trope of flying through the debris/explosion of the ship you just blew up is kind of ridiculous. That’s the last place you want to go.
Finding micrometeorite holes would actually be harder than you would think because it’s only 1 atmosphere pressure leaking (or less, you don’t have to have 1 atm to exist comfortably). Might be easier to find them from the outside first and then map out where to look.
Those battle scenes where the rail gun shot were visibly going through and just missing…that was frightening. And remember, any shot that misses ruins someone else’s day later on.
Which has literally happened on the ISS.