History Main / ContinuousDecompression

** In "[[Recap/FireflyE06OurMrsReynolds Our Mrs. Reynolds]]", Jayne [[spoiler:shoots out the viewport of an energy net-equipped space station to kill the crew and save the ship]].
*** Jayne [[spoiler:does it to kill the crew of the station. He explicitly asks Mal earlier if Mal wants him to shoot the window and Mal says it'd kill some folk, but wouldn't save the ship - so after Jayne saves the ship by shooting the arc projectors, he shoots the window to kill the people responsible for them.]]

* Not averted in Ron Moore's pilot movie ''Virtuality'', though -- in fact, this is one of the worst examples of all. A character is caught inside a small airlock when the outer hatch opens, and is buffeted by a huge torrent of wind for a couple of minutes before the other characters can shut the door. ''Where was all the replacement air coming from???''

%%* Happens in the 1970s story ''The Mutants''.
** In early story "The Moonbase", which also features the subtrope of characters struggling to seal the hole as the air rushes out. One fan actually [[ShownTheirWork did the calculations]] to see how long it should have actually taken for decompression to happen. The results were something on the order of a few seconds. The scene in the episode lasted much longer, obviously.
** In "Enlightenment", Turlough is locked in a small chamber when the protective force field is deactivated letting the air escape to space. It takes several minutes for the Doctor to find Turlough, during which time it is still slowly evacuating though the hole is quite large and the room is quite small. Ironically it is also an example of ExplosiveDecompression, since when Turlough is rescued, he says "I would have exploded in the vacuum of space."

* In the ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' episode "Out of Gas", Mal used this to put out a fire in ''Serenity's'' engine room. This is much more plausible because a fire merely needs to run out of oxygen to go out, and sealing/venting the room will help the fire use up all the oxygen, putting it out before it can damage too much equipment. Chemical fire retardants (e.g. the stuff in the red canisters and the stuff used for chemical fires) actually smother fires to put them out in real life, too!
** In "Our Mrs. Reynolds", Jayne [[spoiler:shoots out the viewport of an energy net-equipped space station to kill the crew and save the ship]].

* ''Series/RedDwarf'': The end of "Legion" has the crew attempt to wire a more advanced stardrive into Starbug's existing engines. The drive takes off on its own and punches out through the ship's hull, resulting in the usual hurricane, with the crew being pulled across the floor.

* Happens in the first action scene of ''Film/RoyalWarriors'', when Michelle fights a henchman on an airplane in mid-flight, and caused her opponent's head to smash into a window which breaks. Unlike most examples though, only his head gets sucked out while his body gets stuck from the shoulders, where he suffocates from the exposure (and his corpse remains on its spot for the rest of the flight until touchdown).

** In the Heinlein story ''Gentlemen, Be Seated'', an accident causes a small hole in a tunnel being dug on a Moon base, and the protagonists have to sit on the hole to seal it. This isn't as funny as it sounds as there's a danger of the person doing so passing out from internal hemorrhage or [[SpaceIsCold hypothermia]]. The workers normally have sticky balloons that float towards a breach and burst, sealing a crack and marking it so someone can come and weld it up, but the hole is too big in this case.

* In ''[[FanFic/SovereignGFCOrigins Origins]]'', a ''Franchise/MassEffect''[=/=]''Franchise/StarWars''[[spoiler:[=/=]''[=Borderlands=]''[=/=]''[=Halo=]'']] MassiveMultiplayerCrossover, ''Normandy SR-2.5'' suffers an airlock breach from outside. Mass effect fields kick in and there's only a slight movement of air prior to that, averting the trope entirely.

* Opening an airlock in ''VideoGame/DeadSpace'' will cause a few seconds of windy turbulence (that's not how airlocks work!) but later an entire deck has its atmosphere vented into space with a minimum of fuss.
** While it can be understandable that internal doors to damaged sections might leak air, this also happens with doors designed to lead into space. The fact that Isaac and Kendra are hacking the doors and the damage to the ship might explain some things.
** There are fragile windows in ''VideoGame/DeadSpace2'' that when broken will blow enemies out into space and Isaac will be dragged along....before being crushed by a door closing.
* The ''{{Franchise/Halo}}'' series averts this, with the games depicting airlocks cycling realistically, and the books at least not mentioning a wind when decompression is involved.

* Justified in in ''VideoGame/Portal2''. [[spoiler:When Chell opens a portal on the moon, there is a continuous decompression effect until the portal is shut.]] Spaceships and the like may have a limited volume of air, but this portal has to equalize the pressure of ''an entire planetary atmosphere''. Blowing out this much air takes ''lots'' of time--far, ''far'' more time than the portal is open for.

However, sometimes this trope is justified. If the enclosed space is relatively large while the hole is comparatively small, it can take hours until the air becomes too thin for people on board to stay conscious. Even a hole that looks quite big in a relatively small space could allow anyone inside to safely leave the area or attempt to fix the damage [[http://www.spaceacademy.net.au/flight/emg/spcdp.htm over the next couple of minutes]].

* ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'': Iron Man and Spider-Man blow a hole in Ebony Maw's ship, causing him to get sucked into space. The continuous wind then endangers the heroes, Spider-Man having to catch Doctor Strange and both being nearly blown out too if not for the SpiderLimbs of Peter's suit. Stark has to close the breach with his suit's tech to keep everything else from being sent outside. Can be justified by the large size of the ship, and the fact it seems to have lots of empty space inside.

Often occurs when somebody or something is ThrownOutTheAirlock.

* In ''[[FanFic/SovereignGFCOrigins Origins]]'', a ''MassEffect''[=/=]''StarWars''[[spoiler:[=/=]''[=Borderlands=]''[=/=]''[=Halo=]'']] MassiveMultiplayerCrossover, ''Normandy SR-2.5'' suffers an airlock breach from outside. Mass effect fields kick in and there's only a slight movement of air prior to that, averting the trope entirely.

* ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'' has it fairly realistically [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2009-01-27 here]], where an accident blows a 300 meter hole in the side of Credomar, a cylindrical station[[spoiler:-cum-DeathRay]] measuring 6 kilometers by 60.

* The HBO movie ByDawnsEarlyLight (1990). During WorldWarIII a B-52 crewman goes insane and activates his EjectionSeat, blowing everyone but the two pilots out of the aircraft.

* The HBO movie ''By Dawn's Early Light'' (1990). During WorldWarIII a B-52 crewman goes insane and activates his EjectionSeat, blowing everyone but the two pilots out of the aircraft.

* Usually played realistically in the ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse''. The atmosphere leaves a little craft pretty much instantly. In ''[[Literature/XWingSeries Solo Command]]'' a flagship's viewport is blown out, and there are a few moments where surviving crew can try to crawl to safety before the bridge is automatically sealed to prevent total atmosphere loss. A space station in ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear'' takes a minute before it's totally vacuum.

** It goes further than that. Either the writers or Olivia seriously slipped up on that scene. The entire point of decompression is that there is a meaningful pressure differential inside and outside. The Zeppelin was flying at a few thousand feet, tops. And it's not like the speed could have helped at all; there exists only ''one'' airship in the entire world today that is capable of traveling faster than 100 mph. This '''is''' ''Series/{{Fringe}},'' though. It's best not to look too deep into that show's fuzzy science.

* Happens in the 1970s ''Series/DoctorWho'' story ''The Mutants''.
** And in an earlier ''Who'' story ''The Moonbase'', which also features the subtrope of characters struggling to seal the hole as the air rushes out. One fan actually [[ShownTheirWork did the calculations]] to see how long it should have actually taken for decompression to happen. The results were something on the order of a few seconds. The scene in the episode lasted much longer, obviously.
** In the ''Doctor Who'' story ''Enlightenment'', Turlough is locked in a small chamber when the protective force field is deactivated letting the air escape to space. It takes several minutes for the Doctor to find Turlough, during which time it is still slowly evacuating though the hole is quite large and the room is quite small. Ironically it is also an example of ExplosiveDecompression, since when Turlough is rescued, he says "I would have exploded in the vacuum of space."

* Justified in in ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}''. [[spoiler:When Chell opens a portal on the moon, there is a continuous decompression effect until the portal is shut.]] Spaceships and the like may have a limited volume of air, but this portal has to equalize the pressure of ''an entire planetary atmosphere''. Blowing out this much air takes ''lots'' of time--far, ''far'' more time than the portal is open for.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' was probably parodying Star Trek when they did this.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck'' episode [[Recap/DarkwingDuckS1E22WhenAliensCollide "When Aliens Collide"]], Darkwing's plane, the Thunderquack, smashes a hole in the side of an Outer Space Patrol ship, and when escaped criminal Wacko takes off in the Thunderquack, everyone left inside the OSP ship is in danger of being sucked out of the hole as if it were the opening of a giant vacuum cleaner.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* The Franchise/{{Gundam}} franchise uses this a lot. Sometimes it's justified (an Island 3 space colony holds around 1,600 ''cubic kilometers'' of air), and sometimes it's less so (''Anime/MobileSuitGundamThe08thMSTeam'' has a room in a ''Magellan''-class battleship decompressing for a ridiculous amount of time).
** Usually, the really worrisome holes in colonies are caused by mobile suits' nuclear reactors exploding[[note]]as seen in the first episodes of ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'' and ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn Gundam Unicorn]]'', with Amuro slicing a Zaku in half and Marida blasting a Jegan with her funnels respectively[[/note]]; some later machines use an adhesive spray to seal up smaller holes, and in ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamF91 Gundam F91]]'' the bad guys have developed a weapon specifically to avoid causing a reactor detonation.

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* The sci-fi BMovie ''Film/MissileToTheMoon'' ends with the LadyLand society being destroyed this way.

* A non-space version happens in ''By Dawn's Early Light'' (1990). During WorldWarIII a B-52 crewman goes insane and activates his EjectionSeat, blowing everyone but the two pilots out of the aircraft.