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Old 16-02-2007, 10:41 AM
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[1ponders] (Paul)
Retired, damn no pension

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Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Obi Obi, Qld
Posts: 18,778
Nothing. Apart from you'd die. Your exposed wet surfaces, mouth, eyes, nasal passages etc would dry out and you'd want to keep a tight clench on your sphincter and yes the air would be sucked from your lungs if you opened your mouth, but that is all. Eventually though you would end up freeze dried as the water in your blood froze and over a period of time sublimated away. You would likely get initial bleeding from various openings with the blood gradually freeze drying, but there is no way you would blow up like a balloon or "explosively decompress". There just isn't enough free gas in your body, plus your skin is too strong to expand or explode like that.

Here is an easy way to test what is going on. If you get a long glass tube and cap one end (like a large version of a test tube), fill it full of water in a tub of water, and invert it so that all the water falls to the bottom of the tube. What do you have in the space at the top. There is no air, there is no water, it must be very close to a vacuum. (This would work better and you would get a stronger vacuum if you used a heavier liquid like mercury but much more dangerous).

Now get something like a small grape that will fit up the tube (or a dead guppie or gold fish if you have one) and place it in the tube. Now with your finger/hand over the end of the tube to prevent the grape from falling out, but still letting the water drain out, raise the tube until it is just in the water and there is next to no water in the tube. Now cap the tube. You have a very good approximation of a vacuum. What has happened to the grape (analogous to the human body)? Nothing. It hasn't swollen up like a balloon, it hasn't exploded and it hasn't leaked it's juices all over the place. If it was as cold in the tube as it is in space then the grape would freeze. And that is all.

Hope that helps
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