Not For the Lively

October 12, 2007 in articles, humor, medicine, science
Tags: 1971, airlock, asphyxiation, atmosphere, cannon, death, decompression, depressurization, die, explosion, explosive, explosive decompression, macabre, military, military test, military testing, mission, New Scientist, parachute, pig, piglet, re-entry, reentry, Russia, Russian, Russian Soyuz-11, science fiction, seal leak, shell, shelling, Soviet, Soyuz, Soyuz-11, space, spacesuit, terminal, USSR, vacuum, vodka

…or alively, I should say, as this rather macabre New Scientist article is about how long if takes to die from different, but very terminal circumstances.

The last part is about explosive decompression, or death due to exposure to a vacuum.

Death due to exposure to vacuum is a staple of science fiction plots, whether the unfortunate gets thrown from an airlock or ruptures their spacesuit.

In real life there has been just one fatal space depressurization accident. This occurred on the Russian Soyuz-11 mission in 1971, when a seal leaked upon re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere; upon landing all three flight crew were found dead from asphyxiation.

I was reminded of this series of Soviet photographs.

I have no idea what’s in that 0.75 L bottle, but I hope, for the sake of that poor pig, it’s a lot stronger than Russian vodka.