My kid has been asking me what happens to austronauts if they take their suits off in space. I cant explain it properly since I’m not entirely sure too.
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Humans are big sacks of slushy stuff. That stuff requires two things to stay as is and not turn into messy stuff: temperature and pressure.
You know how you can crush a soda can if you were to suck the air out of it? Exact same thing with a human body. The can is crushed because you just removed air from the inside, and the air outside of it has pushed inwards at such a force the can is crushed.
Our bodies are designed to function under standard pressure. Take away that pressure and there’s trouble. You know how your skin turns red and starts inflating if you were to hold a tube syringe against it and pull the plunger? Same thing in space, except everywhere on your body and at a much more severe level.
That’s the pressure part of a spacesuit, we just ensure the astronaut’s body is surrounded by a mass of air at the same pressure as here on earth. The temperature part is simpler, we just heat that air up to a comfortable temperature so we don’t freeze in space.
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