It’s week forty-one of our planned off-season re-watch of the entire “re-imagined” BSG canon, and after a little time off to watch Razor, it’s time to move on to the season three episode “Taking A Break From All Your Worries.” So why not join us here for the GWC online frak party? There’s room for everyone, though you’ll have to bring your own snacks…
Feel free to jump in at any point with your comments on this week’s episode as the re-watch is by definition spoiler free. We’ll be in and out, but we’ll definitely take a look at your comments before we start next week’s podcast.
(And yes, we slipped a week ahead, discussing this episode a bit this week. Don’t worry – we’ll hit it again in next week’s 'cast, too!)
The whole science behind a person being able to survive space sounded a little like BS to me so I did some research on the web, and found this excerpt:
In 1965, while performing tests at the NASA facility now known as Johnson Space Center a subject was accidentally exposed to a near vacuum (less than 1 psi) when his space suit leaked while in a vacuum chamber. He did not pass out for about 14 seconds, by which time unoxygenated blood had reached his brain. Technicians began to repressurize the chamber within 15 seconds and he regained consciousness at around the equivalent of 15,000 feet of altitude. He later said that his last conscious memory was of the water on his tongue beginning to boil.
So in other words, no exploding head like Ahh-nold in “Total Recall.” So I guess short exposure to space is survivable.
As I recall, one of the big premises in Galactica 1980 (not that I base any real thought off that show) was that The Colonials were used to a more pressurized environment then earth provided … allowing the kids to leap over trees and play really good little league (ahh the good ole days).
So, it’s possible that in this BSG 'verse that they are the opposite … used to far less atmosphere and therefore would be able to survive even longer in the vacuum of space.
I think I have a bigger problem with the fact that people in SciFi are always freezing in space… While I understand that the absolute temp of space is quite low … I would think that given your in a vaccuum that you would simply lose heat as it dissipated from your body (or maybe even not since there would be no particles to transport the heat away from you)… so that has always confused me …
Apparently the body will freeze (or at least lose its’ heat), but not near instantaneously. From what I read, it still takes some time for your body to lose its’ heat. Now for turning to Ice, I am not sure, but what you said sounds reasonable to me. Interesting stuff, but nothing I would want to see first hand!
Survivable, I guess so, but it certainly sounds like a horrible feeling to go out on.
Seeing the sky and trees through the glass window in the opening scene reminded me of all the scenes from season one in Baltar’s mansion house and just how calm and beautiful those scenes always (except for one explosive one) were. I miss that expensive set.
It’s odd how for the last few eps we kept hearing about The Chief and Cali fighting, but it’s really only in this ep that we see them fighting.
MAN, Helo has the worst luck, first he gets stuck in Dogville herding the civis and now we see him shake hands with the human rash, hot dog, can Helo catch a break and be on the side of normalcy for once or does he have to catch a skeevy plague as well?
Even when the two of them were fighting during work, all Tyrol wanted was to just BE with Cally, no matter how you slice it, that’s love, which explains the Chief’s most blunt answer to Lee at Joe’s bar when he said he never thinks about Sharon anymore.
Even the notes they leave to one another (Adama to babydama) have cut corners.
This episode was talked about on Astronomy Cast as being pretty spot on as far as how the show handled the exposure to space. Here’s a link to the show notes w/transcript:
Also, check out this Slate Explainer column called “Can you survive in outer space?”, which was based on scene in the movie Sunshine (there’s a thread about that somewhere in the forum) in which one of the astronauts has to make a very brief trip from one ship to another without proper equipment.
A Day in the Life is one of the weak episodes. Now, The Woman King I just do not like, but ADitL is different, because it has such strong potential to be a great episode. I would love to know more about Adama’s inner life, what it feels like to be inside his head, but this episode just didn’t deliver. And the whole point was that it was just another day, right? So maybe focusing on both his anniversary with Caroline (is that her name?) and having tragedy strike the Tyrols was just not a good way to frame such an episode. RDM’s podcast on this one is particularly enjoyable for me because he seems to feel the same way. So it kind of recovers some of that potential as he talks about what he had intended to achieve.
2001:A Space Oddessy (1968) dealt with this scenerio too…when ‘Dave’ was forced to transfer from a survey pod to the Discovery ship via an emergency hatch. Hal (the AI running the ship), wouldn’t let him in, so he spent about 15 sec or so in vacuum…spacesuit with no helmet. Ouch.
Interesting stuff, though I promise I am really not a morbid person. To recap from these two links:
1.) A human can survive in space for up to half a minute with no serious (permanent) injuries for about 30 seconds. That is to say provided you exhale the air in your lungs, otherwise you will end up with the bends— lungs rupturing for example.
2.) A person can probably survive up to two minutes in space, though with serious damage to the body.
3.) Your body does not explode, blood boil, or freeze.
4.) You will likely only remain conscious for 15 seconds.
