] If you don't try to hold your breath, exposure to space ] for half a minute or so is unlikely to produce permanent ] injury. Holding your breath is likely to damage your ] lungs, something scuba divers have to watch out for when ] ascending, and you'll have eardrum trouble if your ] Eustachian tubes are badly plugged up, but theory ] predicts -- and animal experiments confirm -- that ] otherwise, exposure to vacuum causes no immediate injury. ] You do not explode. Your blood does not boil. You do not ] freeze. You do not instantly lose consciousness. ] ] Various minor problems (sunburn, possibly "the bends", ] certainly some [mild, reversible, painless] swelling of ] skin and underlying tissue) start after ten seconds or ] so. At some point you lose consciousness from lack of ] oxygen. Injuries accumulate. After perhaps one or two ] minutes, you're dying. The limits are not really known. Something interesting you'll never need to know. Human Body in a Vacuum |