How and when did humans discover there was no air in space?
In: 1574
There’s an Air in Space Museum?
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We suspected it long before we were able to fly. We would have known from having to breath harder after traveling up mountains that there was less breathable air at altitude. What we didn’t know was how high the atmosphere actually extended.
One of the earliest flight experiments came shortly after the development of the hot air balloon in the late 1700s. Before the earliest aeronauts took to the skies, they sent a duck (a flying bird, known to be able to survive at altitude), a chicken (a flightless bird, but with an anatomy similar to a duck) and a sheep (a mammal, with physiology similar to that of a human). When all three survived their balloon flight, we knew that our atmosphere was thicker than we previously suspected.
Funny bit of trivia: some self-styled scientists (who may have degrees to lend credence to their claims) still believe that interstellar space is formed out of aether and isn’t actually a vacuum.
For the longest time, scientists believed in aether because they couldn’t explain why light travels through space if there’s no medium to propagate it with.
Now we know that light is an electromagnetic wave and is self-propagating – it needs no medium. Einstein’s work in this area helped dispel that notion entirely, for most respectable scientists.
So… I don’t know the exact date, but it wasn’t until the early 1900s where prevailing scientific thought changed from “aether” to “vacuum” for the space between stars.
[I believe they captured the moment in this documentary I saw.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86scPKqWFvc)
Interestingly, while people are talking about 17th century discussions of pressure and the like, as far back as the ancient Greeks agreed that what was out in space wasn’t “air.” They called it “aether,” and decided that that was why planets orbited the way that they did.
So “you can’t breathe in space” is actually an idea that goes back thousands of years.
one guy went up, took his helmet off, and went “Nope”, then quickly suffocated. that guys name? – Richard Simmons. …and thats why we dont hear anything from him anymore.
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