History Main / ContinuousDecompression

** In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'', a Federation soldier is shown pulling a lever to open a compartment filled with pink balloons that float towards the breech and burst, sealing it (possibly inspired by the Heinlein story mentioned below).

* Played quite realistically in the Creator/RobertAHeinlein book ''Literature/FarmerInTheSky''. During the trip to Ganymede, a bit of space junk penetrates the hull of the ''Mayflower'' in the dorm compartment where the protagonist and twenty other boys happen to be staying. The hole is explicitly only the size of his fist, and after the automatic failsafes seal off the compartment (locking the boys into the decompressing room), he's able to plug it with one of their foam-rubber pillows.

* ''Film/{{Airport}}'' is probably the TropeCodifier, at least for its use in films. When the mentally unhinged passenger sets off his suitcase bomb in the aircraft bathroom and blows a hole in the side of the jet, the decompression is severe enough to suck him out of the hole and, and wreak havoc the whole length of the passenger compartment. (It even blows the bathroom door ''out'' into the walkway.) ([[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-yaotZAeNg You can see it here, starting at about 1:25]].)

* ''Film/{{Goldfinger}}'' uses a variant of this trope, where incredibly big people are blown out of an incredibly small hole.
** It may be actually possible to perform this, as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f17abJOMel4 this video]] of a crab being sucked entirely through a hole many times smaller than itself demonstrates. Also related, the Series/{{MythBusters}} [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEY3fN4N3D8 squeezing a meat dummy into a diver helmet]] merely by removing its internal air pressure. Scary, scary stuff that may provide a basis for this in reality, though movies are frequently known to exaggerate those well beyond realism.
*** The difference is the degree of pressure difference, the unlucky crab on the sea floor wandered near a crack in a pipe where the internal pressure was many atmospheres lower than the water outside of it while in an airplane there is a much smaller difference of less than one atmosphere in pressure (if there was no air outside the airplane then it wouldn't be able to fly.)
** In the original novel for ''Literature/{{Goldfinger}}'', Literature/JamesBond deliberately caused it (while in the film it is an accident), supposedly having been inspired by a real-life event.

** A variation when Tam is trapped in an airlock filling with water; the water pressure buckles the outer hatch, but instead of everything being ThrownOutTheAirlock the water [[SpaceIsCold flash-freezes]]; Tam along with it.
*** As an aside, the hatch would have buckled even further since water decreases in density and expands as it freezes (this is why water ice floats on top of liquid water and why bottles explode if frozen.)

** It continues filling to a higher level than the crack because it won't stop filling until the air left inside the sub is at the same pressure as the water -- i.e., a few hundred atmospheres.
*** But the air is already at the same pressure as the seawater outside--the drilling rig is under the same high pressure, hence the use of the "moon pool" for coming and going. It's why Lindsey and the soldiers took eight hours to equalize pressure before leaving the sub.
** Realistic in the case of the glass as the cracks grow until the glass becomes weak enough to fail catastrophically as it is resisting an incompressible fluid while containing one that is very compressible.

* A pressure dome on Mars breaks in the original ''Film/TotalRecall1990'' and the resulting storm is enough to pick people up and fling them through the hole. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger has to cling to a railing as if he was inside a tornado.
** Although that includes air rushing from other parts of the large interconnected colony, not a single room.

** Downplayed during the ThrownOutTheAirlock scene.

* ''Film/StarTrekNemesis'', when the Enterprise's bridge is blown open.

** A variation when Tam is trapped in an airlock filling with water; the water pressure buckles the outer hatch, but instead of everything being ThrownOutTheAirlock the water [[SpaceIsCold flash-freezes]].
** During a GunStruggle between Jensen and Ava, a bullet is fired through the space station window. Jensen is sucked up against it momentarily sealing the breach, but then the glass cracks and she is sucked out into space.

%%* Happens in the 1970s story "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS9E4TheMutants The Mutants]]".

In RealLife, the rate of decompression correlates positively with the pressure differential and inversely to time taken to equalize. In layman's terms, decompression is usually either violent but quick (if the pressure differential is large) or slow but gentle (if the pressure differential is small).

In (Real World) ExplosiveDecompression, if a pressure vessel's structure were to be compromised, all of the gas held inside would rush out until a state of equilibrium has been achieved (if this pressure vessel were in space, this would effectively mean all the gas would be blown out). Keep in mind that there's only 14psi between 1 atmosphere and vacuum. It would take a very large hole to produce actual explosive decompression. Consider an automobile tire at twice that pressure differential; if it gets a hole in it, the air leaks out. It does ''not'' explosively decompress unless the structure of the tire fails completely (e.g. if it is overheated).

Not so in soft science fiction. If explosive decompression were to occur, a constant wind will appear and attempt to blow the entire contents of the room out into space, and will only cease once the hole has been closed. This may even occur for several minutes, even if in real life the hole is big enough to allow all air to escape in a matter of seconds. Another common variation is for the wind to be just strong enough to make people's clothes flutter but just weak enough not to actually blow them over -- unless they have the unfortunate chance of being the [[DisneyVillainDeath bad guy]] or a RedShirt, that is.

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]]. This can also be the case if the pressure differential is relatively small - for instance, an airliner well below cruising altitude - and/or if pressurization is being maintained by continuously blowing in ''more'' air (assuming that the source of said fresh air has enough of it handy to compensate for the continuous leak).

The "remaining air" fact is also neglected in sci-fi. As the air leaks out, the air pressure inside decreases. The inside should become increasingly impossible for a human to operate in ''long'' before all the air is out.

* ''Series/TheExpanse'': Early in the first season, most of the protagonists are sitting in a room on a ship while a railgun blows a hole in the wall about the size of a human head. Between the size of the hole relative to the size of the room, and the short amount of time for the crew to react, [[spoiler: they are able to block the hole before losing consciousness, but one character loses his head anyway]].

* ''Series/RedDwarf'': The end of "[[Recap/RedDwarfSVILegion 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.

* [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_11 Soyuz 11]], which sustained a leak after undocking from the Salyut 1 space station, had a version of it. The breach was small enough to avoid ExplosiveDecompression, but it quickly rendered the Cosmonauts unconscious due to hypoxia within a few seconds and they were dead by the time the craft landed.

* In ''FanFic/SovereignGFCOrigins'', the ''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.

* 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 go through an already broken window. 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).
* ''Film/SnakesOnAPlane'': When [[Creator/SamuelLJackson Agent Flynn]] shoots out a window, the compression is powerful enough to destroy part of the wall, and lasts long enough to suck every single snake out of the plane.

* ''Film/{{Airport}}'' is probably the TropeCodifier, at least for its use in films. When the mentally unhinged passenger sets off his suitcase bomb in the aircraft bathroom and blows a hole in the side of the of the jet, the decompression is severe enough to suck him out the hole and, and wreak havoc the whole length of the passenger compartment. (It even blows the bathroom door ''out'' into the walkway.) ([[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-yaotZAeNg You can see it here, starting at about 1:25]].)

* Not averted in Creator/RonMoore'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???''

** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS20E5Enlightenment 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 "Objects in Space," Mal expresses worry about River grabbing a gun that's been left out and shooting it, which would rupture the hull and kill everyone. Jayne replies that a bullet from a pistol is too small and the lead is too soft, and that it would barely breach the hull at all, let alone make a rupture large enough to kill anyone.

* ''Series/TheNewAvengers'': In "Trap", Steed, Gambit and Purdey are on a plane when the main cabin starts filling with gas. Gambit opens the main door to depressurize the cabin and suck out the gas. The depressurization goes on for long enough for the pilot get out of the cockpit and still be sucked out of the plane.

* 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 more time than the portal is open for.
* Subverted for what the Star Fissure does at the end of ''VideoGame/{{Riven}}''. For one thing, it's an anomaly in the Age itself that opens to a void ''that has air in it'', and just looks like a vacuum because of how badly Gehn wrote the Age. He lampshades this in his journal, but is too egotistical to think he is at fault. This is proven later in ''VideoGame/{{Uru}}'' where the same Fissure appears in [[spoiler: Relto]], but has no vacuum effect.

* One of the first tasks in ''VideoGame/MissionCritical'' is to repair a hole in one of the quarters leading out into space as a result from the battle in the intro. The hole is fairly small and easy to fix. When you enter the room, you see a horizontal twister of sorts but don't actually suffer any ill effects. In fact, this is one of the TakeYourTime "critical" tasks, although the computer makes it clear that the door is only holding ''for now;'' since it's not a pressure fitting, it will give way sooner or later, hence its decision to seal off the deck to contain the pressure leak when the door finally fails.

* ''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 measuring 6 kilometers by 60. It's pointed out that it will take a while to empty the can completely, but it does need to be patched a soon as possible.

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'': In "Can't Go Back", Lapis opens the door on the moon base so she can leave. Lion grabs Steven's hoodie to keep him from flying into space, and Steven is able to have a short conversion with Lapis before she flies away. Justified with Lapis because Gems are a space-faring species, and as such are able to breathe in space and adjust to gravity on any planet.

** ''TNG'' actually used this as a solution to the problem of the week twice. In one episode, when stuck in a GroundhogDayLoop that ended in their deaths by way of spaceship collision, the solution was to vent the shuttlebay and push themselves backward. In another, it was used to try to force an alien lifeform to stop feeding on the ship, which failed.