[net.movies] 2001 "flaw" and surviving vacuum

donald@utcsrgv.UUCP (Don Chan) (10/16/83)

I fear Michael Bishop is mistaken when he asserts that Bowman couldn't have
re-entered Discovery through vacuum:

    Here's another technical error for you.  The scene where Dave Bowman must
    endure the vacuum of space while transferring from the pod to the Discovery.
    (He forgot his helmet, remember.)  It appeared that he had no problem 
    surviving the vacuum for some 5 to 10 seconds which I find impossible.
    When there was no pressure, there was nothing to keep the liquids of his 
    body from immediate vaporization (boiling).  He should of been dead in 
    the first second.  Space is cold and empty, and we are not well adapted
    to 0 pressure.     

In the early days of the U.S. space program experiments were performed
in which chimps exposed to vacuum survived unharmed for several minutes.
Vertebrate bodies are a lot tougher than you think, in Arthur Clarke's story
"Earthlight" he goes into a lot of detail explaining this (in one scene a
space rescue must be performed across vacuum).  Remember that our precious
bodily fluids are inclosed in a rather resilent shell of skin and flesh,
so it would take a while for them to boil away.

"Alien" is one film that has a gross technical error as a result of this,
since it shows people blowing up rather violently when exposed to vacuum.

There is one minor flaw in that context of 2001 though: after entering the
ship through vacuum we see Bowman walking through the pod bay *with a helmet
on*, but we see his other helmet still hanging on the rack in the pod bay.
Presumably he got the helmet from an emergency supply locker or something,
but it should have been shown.
-- 
Don Chan, University of Toronto

ARPAnet: utcsrgv!donald@UW-BEAVER
UUCP:    { linus ihnp4 floyd allegra uw-beaver
           ubc-vision cornell watmath hcr decwrl }!utcsrgv!donald
-or-     { linus decvax research duke cwruecmp }!utzoo!utcsrgv!donald

pdbain@wateng.UUCP (Peter Bain) (10/17/83)

Concerning Bowman's helmet: if you look in the photo section of "The
Making of Kubrick's 2001", you will notice that there is a space suit
in the airlock. -peter bain