Astronomy Cast Ep. 264
"The Hazards of Spaceflight"
Unlike many Sci-fi shows, spaceflight isn't as easy as it looks, there are lots of factors that get in the way of travel through the final frontier. Many of these are mechanical such as the travel device exploding and all the stages they have to go through to make it to space, and others are human. The human obstacles are the fact that space has no air, and is either extremely hot, or extremely cold. We have to take precautions to insulate spacemen as well as physically possible, or they will die just from the temperatures fluctuating.
I never really realized until I listened to this episode though...but without the constant pressure exerted on the human body by the earth's gravity and atmosphere, we would expand and die...Which is what happens when air leaks from spacesuits...
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