We all know masses do n’t irrupt when scupper to quad without protection . But science fiction has taken some … liberty with vacuity exposure over the age . Here are 19 view of mass being discover to space , rate from the least naturalistic to the most .

While the explosive decompressing scene is a assay-mark of science fiction films , there are ways of get it right : we do know that you do n’t explode , moil or flash freeze : when shove out of an airlock , you do have about fifteen seconds before you pass out from oxygen deprivation and a span of minutes before you in reality break down .

https://gizmodo.com/what-really-happens-when-you-get-blown-out-of-an-airloc-5924522

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So , how does skill fabrication handle it ? Let ’s go from laughable to good .

19. Total Recall

Towards the end of Total Recall , Quaid throw away a bomb and bumble out the wall of one of the buildings on Mars . Cohaagen , who triggered the bomb , is sucked out of the edifice , where he proceeds to explosively decompress in the flimsy Martian atm .

Why this is altogether , perfectly unseasonable : aim screenwriters , repeat after me : you do n’t irrupt in distance . You do n’t explode in place . Total Recall is a totally fantastical and hilarious scene . It ’s a iconic , to be sure , but it ’s not what would happen if you found yourself on the surface of Mars without a space suit . Not even closemouthed .

18. Outland

On Jupiter ’s moon Io , Sean Connery is a sheriff on a minelaying facility , and discovers that workers are die : one unfortunate individual rips open up his space suit , and explosively decompresses in a ridiculous fashion .

Why this is bonkers : This is one of the worst examples . You do n’t swell up like a balloon and pop when you ’re exposed to hard vacuum . It ’s a dramatic example , because it ’s so over the top .

17. Farscape

Zaahn has a incubus in which Crichton get a sally in his helmet ’s visor , and blows up like a balloon , not too unlike what we saw in Outland .

Nope . Okay , it ’s a ambition sequence , and clearly an court to Outland , but again , this does n’t happen .

16. Mission To Mars

When the rescue mission reach Mars , the gang of Mars II require to evacuate when it ’s breach by micrometeoroids . As they make their style to an orbiting resupply module , Woody overshoots . When his wife and fellow crewmates attempt to rescue him , he removes his helmet , killing himself so that they do n’t die trying to save him .

Why this is wrong , haywire , untimely : Woody does n’t explosively decompress , but he does suspend now . While you would die fair apace in the emptiness of outer space , it would take a little while for the heat to leave your consistence for you to suspend like this .

15. Event Horizon

During the film , the ship ’s chief technologist Ensign Justin is possessed and goes into an airlock , where he sample to commit self-annihilation by opening the doors .

Why this is haywire : When Justin ’s airlock loses pressure level , he begins bleeding quite a act , and being let on to the vacuity of space is n’t go to do that . On the plus side , though , he does endure , and he ’s brought back into the airlock .

14. Killjoys

The Killjoys bunch is trapped on a abandoned ship ship , where they come across an insane scientist with some nanites that have kill off the rest of the work party . When her ship , Lucy , detaches , she has to make the jump through space to get back on table .

waitress , really ? We see this manoeuvre later on , with Sunshine , but this is n’t as well done . The nanites are used to instead heal and torture people – but they ca n’t do one while they do the other . So , while Dutch is infect , she makes the jumping , make that they ’ll heal her while she ’s exposed to vacuum . The picture here is a fate more striking than what would in reality materialize . But , she does n’t die or explode .

13. Dark Matter

At the end of Episode Ten , Two is forced into an airlock : another work party is trying to get from data from the crew of the Raza , and jeopardise to space her if they do n’t get clean . The her gang gives up the code , but she ’s spaced anyway .

Eh , we ’ll go with it : It makes for a keen cliffhanger , but this is one of those science fabrication handwaving moments . Two survives because she ’s an advanced synthetic human , which give her some redundant abilities and nanites that protect her . The crew believes that she died , which show that for normal people , depart into space without a suit is risky to your wellness . So , other than the hand - waving engineering magic , this cultivate for what it is .

12. Firefly

At the end of the instalment Ariel , Mal slug Jayne with a twist after chance upon that the soldier of fortune sample to sell them out . When Jayne awaken up , he ’s in an open air lock while they ’re leaving the planet ’s atmosphere .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjgGWOpksEw

Somewhat accurate ? Okay , this is n’t technically spacing , but he was well on his way . The use of these scene is peachy , because it ’s emphatically aware that you ’re not just going to get sucked out of the airlock when it ’s crack capable just a moment , even with a thin air . I would have expected Jayne to go a footling more out of breathing spell though , founder that the ship will exonerate the atmosphere in just 2 moment .

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

11. Star Trek

In the initiative instant of J.J. Abram ’s Star Trek , the Kelvin is attacked , opening its hallways up to space , and one pathetic gang fellow member gets sucked out into space .

We ’ll live with it : There ’s some exact thing here : the crew member does n’t explode , which is a plus , but they also drop the audio when she exits the ship . She ’s also moving a bit after she ’s reset the rupture , meaning that decease was not instantaneous . The downside here is that literally seconds before this , the missiles were screaming through space .

10. Moonraker

At the end of Moonraker , James Bond shoots the moving picture ’s baddie , Hugo Drax with a dart , before ask round him to take a elephantine step for world : out the airlock he goes .

Why this is veracious : Drax obviously does n’t pull through this trip , but it ’s a nice departure from some of the more sensational depictions of getting spaced . He does n’t blow up or have blood spurt out of his ears : he just fly out into the black . Bonus points for the sound go out as well .

9. Sunshine

There ’s a couple of airlock scene in this film , but the one that I ’m think of is the air lock jump . Three members of the crew of the 2nd Icarus find themselves trapped on the first , with a blow out airlock . In fiat to get back to their own ship , they have to jump across the gap into another airlock . There ’s only one problem : they have one distance lawsuit . One crew penis takes the suit , while the other two wrap themselves up with insulation and tie themselves to him .

Why this is sort of rightfield : The crew penis know that the void of blank is harmful to your health with extend picture : not just because of the deficiency of air pressure sensation , but because of the temperature . You would n’t stop dead that quickly – Andrew Fisher saysthat it would take you a while for someone to get to the temperatures to really need the extra insulation .

8. Watchmen

In Watchmen , Dr. Manhattan had die off to Mars for some solitude , and bring along Silk Spectre to demonstrate a point . Upon wreak her to the Red Planet , she gasp for melodic phrase after he forget to cater a bubble of melody .

Why this is somewhat precise : This is actually passably well done ! Silk Spectre arrives on Mars and finds that she ca n’t breathe : Mars has only a fraction of the airwave pressure of Earth . She did n’t blow up , or really have anything take place to her . Given such an precipitous drop in pressure , she might have had some adverse effects that she should get Dr. Manhatten to check up on .

7. Guardians of the Galaxy

After get away from Knowhere , Gamora ’s ship is blown up , entrust her out in the vacuity of space . Starlord jumps out with his masquerade party , and uses it to redeem her while he call in for a rescue .

Why this is veracious : There ’s two thing here . The first is that Gamora ’s out in vacuum for a while ( which should be taken with a grain of salt , give her foreign physiology and augmentations ) , but she could subsist for a minute or two , and she was n’t debunk for too long . Peter Quill on the other hand , also flies around without a suit , and he was n’t out long enough to incur any side effects before he was rescue .

6. Gravity

In Gravity , Dr. Ryan Stone find herself alone in a Soyuz capsule , when her presumed - dead partner , Lt . Matt Kowalski demonstrate up and opens the door to get himself in .

Why this is sort of rightfulness : Stone believably would have survive the abbreviated decompression – the aspect only lasts for a mates of seconds while Kowalski lets himself in and re - pressurise the space capsule . The sound drops out too , which is a good touch . The downside ? The total scene is all in Stone ’s head teacher , so anything could have chance .

5. Battlestar Galactica

In ‘ A Day in the lifespan ’ , during the third time of year of Battlestar Galactica , Chief Tyroll and his married woman Cally steer over to an air lock to check it over . While they ’re inwardly , the ship find a pressure differential and locks the air lock doors . With air leak out , the crew hatches a desperate plan to save them : open up the knocked out door , and outdo them up with a bird of prey .

Why this is pretty well done : This scene and episode render off a twosome of coolheaded matter . First , we see the impact of the loss of air travel throughout the episode , and as they slowly lose heat in the airlock . Moreover , when they blow the room access , they make the jump without space suits , and subsist . They even end up the aesculapian bay afterwards , recovering .

4. Titan A.E.

Titan A.E. rocks , and it ’s one of those films that actually set about this sort of matter right-hand . Cale and Korso manage to bunk from a space post , only to discover that their windscreen is damage and is about to collapse . To scat , they have to jump from the escape cock seedpod to their ship . Korso tells Cale to exhale , and kick out the windscreen .

Why this is right : The characters here know that you ’re not going to explode ( Cale in all probability would have screw this from the type of work that he did ) , and they even knew enough to exhale so as to prevent any interior injuries . Even better ? Cale wakes up in an infirmary , getting process for his little spacewalk .

3. 2001: A Space Odyssey

“ I ’m sorry Dave , I ca n’t do that . ” This is in all probability one of scientific discipline fable ’s most iconic scenes : Hal does n’t allow Dave Bowman to dock with the ship , forcing the astronaut to alternate – missing his helmet – into an airlock .

Why this is right : This scene is great . Dave draw up the slam and dives in , and does n’t suffer any ill upshot , other than getting resile around the air lock a bit . He ’s not out there long enough to give-up the ghost . Plus , there ’s no sound anywhere in the scene , which throw it all the more accurate and unsettling .

2. The Martian

When astronaut Mark Watney is trap in a malfunctioning airlock , he gets knocked around a bit , and cracks spread his helmet . As the air is leaking out , he draw out some duct tape and begin to patch up the maw .

Why this is right : This is a fun setting , because of course Duct Tape will do this variety of thing , right ? It has been used for repairs in space before , just not on a visor :

I can believe that it would be enough to slow up down any sort of leak in a helmet , at least to the distributor point where he could get to safe . In the novel , he uses a quickly - setting epoxy glue , which strikes me as something that would be a bit better to apply .

William Duplessie

Just for playfulness , you may see Matt Damon get blow out of an airlockin Interstellar , but he is wearing his spacesuit .

1. The Expanse

There ’s a whole bunch of aspect where people are hurl out the airlock or threatened by it in this show . Miller is about to get the treatment on Ceres , and threaten a corrupt land lord with space too soon in the time of year , but the aspect that I ’m think of happens in the show ’s 6th sequence , Rock Bottom , when Uncle Mateo discovers a loose wire and opens his helmet to take out it .

Why this is veracious : Nothing happens . He slowly breaths out as he opens his faceplate and remove the wire . Syfy even has apage devoted to the scene :

place is a vacuum , meaning that there are no particles floating around . When you are exhibit to this , the air in your lungs has no choice but to be pull out through your sass . If you hold your intimation you ’d be in gravid trouble . This is because any stay line would rapidly spread out , rupturing the lungs . You wo n’t freeze at once and your eyeballs wo n’t detonate , but you will become aware of the spittle on your tongue stewing away , as well as your travail .

Starship Test 9

What really work about this scene is that it ’s so casual : the Belters populate out in space , and they ’re extremely adept at working in the vacuum , not panic when something come up .

This certainly is n’t a comprehensive listing of all the times that this sort of affair happens : what prospect would you include , and where would they return on the lean ?

2001Event horizonJames BondSpaceThe Martian

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