History Main / ThrownOutTheairLock

[[quoteright:350:[[{{Film/Alien}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/spacedalien.jpg]]]]

[[{{Film/Alien}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/spacedalien.jpg]]

'''Almighty Tallest Purple:''' That was the wrong guy but... it's okay!

'''Almighty Tallest Purple:''' SEIZE THAT GUY, AND um... throw him to the airlocks!\\

* In the ''{{Firefly}}'' episode "Ariel" mentioned in the above quote, Mal almost does this to Jayne for ratting Simon and River out to the Feds on Ariel for the reward money. Jayne fearfully states that this "ain't no way for a man to die," and though Jayne wanted both of the Tams off the ship for a variety of reasons, as Mal vehemently points out during the confrontation, "[[{{Nakama}} you turn on ANY of my crew, you turn on ME!]]"

* Used in a ''StarWars'' parody on ''RobotChicken'', when Vader gets rid of Jar Jar this way: "If this is the escape, then where the pod?"

* They accidentally did this on ''{{The Simpsons}}'' in which Homer jettisons the two presidential candidates out of Kang and Kodos' ship.

* If you manage to find the Comm Satellite secret level of ''{{Quake2}}', you'll notice a threshold with danger markings at the beginning of the level. Beyond the threshold is a stash of goodies placed conveniently near an opened airlock. Do the math.

** In a nutshell, the Improbability Drive runs on the mere chance that an atom in a molecule travels in a strait path, but there's always an improbability chance it's not in that spot. Aurthur and Ford were floating in space, but there was a very slim chance of them not being there at all.

[[folder: Web Animation ]]

* In [[HomestarRunner Strong Bad's]] film Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective, [[spoiler:Craig]] (played by [[spoiler:The Cheat]]) is disposed of in this way. Due to the cheap production of the film and the fact that this scene is shot in Strong Bad's basement, [[spoiler:Craig]] is simply kicked into a dryer which is covered in aluminum foil to look like an airlock.

[[/folder]]

* A threat used repeatedly in LoisMcMasterBujold's Vorkosigan Saga.

[[AC:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]
* In one episode of ''CowboyBebop'', Spike spaces [[spoiler:a rogue refrigerator]]. Notably, the HollywoodScience aspects of the trope were averted as the would-be spacee had to be physically kicked out of the ship when air movement proved insufficient to do the job.

* In ''{{Trigun}}'', [[spoiler: a human who bullied Rem, Vash and Knives and tried to kill the twins dies like this.]]
* Happens in the original {{Gaiking}} series, to the wife of [[AntiVillain an alien enemy]] [[spoiler: some time before their daughter is shot to death and he's brainwashed into becoming Darius's minion. [[OrIsIt Or Is He?]].]]

[[AC: ComicBooks]]
* As part of a plan to fight aliens with 'bring one back to life' uber-technology, Cyclops of the XMen throws himself out an airlock into space and dies. Intentionally. Knowing he lacks (and will lack) access to his powers. That's how much of a badass he is.

[[AC: {{Film}}]]

* The Sean Connery movie "Outland" features a doped-up asteroid miner doing this to himself in the opening minutes.

* There are THREE notable airlock scenes in ''{{Sunshine}}''. In the first, Icarus Two has decoupled from Icarus One, wrenching the airlock open. There's only one spacesuit, and with no means of repressurizing the damaged airlock they can't just send over more suits. [[spoiler:Capa (the person most critical to the mission) is placed inside the spacesuit while the others wrap themselves in thermal insulation. With two men holding onto Capa's spacesuit, the door is opened (manually by a crewmember who has to stay behind) and the outrush of air blasts them in the direction of Icarus Two's airlock which is twenty metres away. One crewmember strikes part of the spaceship and is knocked free of their grasp; the others survive.]]
** In the second incident Capa is locked in Icarus Two's airlock [[spoiler:by mad Captain Pinbacker. Capa burns a hole in the inside door with an oxy torch (kept in the airlock as part of the EVA repair kit), then straps himself to the wall and fires the explosive bolts in the outside door. The force of the air inside the spaceship trying to escape through the small hole is enough to wrench the inside door off its hinges.]]
** Plus there's a THIRD airlock incident not long after this. [[spoiler:Capa has just separated the payload from Icarus II and is making his way to the airlock when he trips in his heavy spacesuit. The boosters will fire in four minutes; Capa is able to get to his feet again, but the payload has already separated. Capa must leap from one airlock to the other and climb inside before the boosters fire.]]

* Subverted in the ''HitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' movie: Prefect and Dent stand in the Vogon airlock while claxons sound, facing the standard giant, ominous-looking space door, waiting for it to open and send them to their doom. Nothing happens. Then a tiny and inconspicous TrapDoor opens under them instead.

* In 2001: A Space Odyssey, [[spoiler:HAL 9000 kills Frank Poole by maneuvering Poole's space pod and using the gripper arms while Poole is on EVA to replace the AE-35 unit. David Bowman rushes out in another pod to rescue his fellow astronaut, but in his haste neglects to take a helmet for his pressure suit. When HAL refuses to open the pod bay doors so Bowman can reenter Discovery, Since Bowman lacks a helmet, he has to throw ''himself'' out of the airlock in order to regain entry into the spaceship. He is able to open the outer door of the airlock with the gripper arms, but the pod hatch does not mate with the door completely. Bowman blows the explosive bolts on the hatch, tucks down and is blown into the airlock. In seconds, he is able to shut the outer door manually and repressurize the airlock. Although this scene is perfectly plausible, despite {{Explosive Decompression}}, Bowman inhales and holds his breath right before the hatch blows, which is the wrong thing to do. This may have been a mistake by actor Keir Dullea, however.]]

[[AC: {{Literature}}]]

** In a mild subversion, they survived the airlock toss. This was thanks to the Infinite Improbability Drive, in a surreal scene involving [[spoiler:detached limbs, penguins, and an infinite number of monkeys using an infinite number of typewriters]]. It's kind of hard to explain.

** Specifically, it's stated that since a slaver ship's true purpose is impossible to hide from the inside, if they're boarded and don't have a cargo of slaves they're assumed to have spaced them beforehand and as such are automatically guilty of mass-murder. IIRC, in the book where this is stated, one slaver captain, while flying without a cargo, muses that it would be better to get caught with a full load of slaves; slaving will just get the whole crew life in prison, whereas being charged with mass-murder will get them all shot on the spot.

[[AC: LiveActionTV]]
* In the ''{{Firefly}}'' episode "Ariel" mentioned in the above quote, Mal almost does this to Jayne for ratting Simon and River out to the Feds on Ariel for the reward money. Jayne fearfully states that this "ain't no way for a man to die," and though Jayne wanted both of the Tams off the ship for a variety of reasons, as Mal vehemently points out during the confrontation, "[[{{Nakama}} you turn on ANY of my crew, you turn on ME!]]"

--->'''Sheridan:''' Commander! Did you threaten to grab this man by the collar and threaten to throw him out an airlock?
--->'''Ivanova:''' ''[chagrined]'' Yes, I did.
--->'''Sheridan:''' I'm shocked! Shocked and dismayed. May I remind you that we are short on supplies here? We can't afford to take perfectly good clothing and throw it out into space! Always take the jacket off first -- I've told you that before! Sorry. She meant to say, "stripped naked and thrown out of an airlock". I apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

[[AC:TabletopGames]]

* The Imperial Navy of Warhammer40k proscribes this as a punishment for many, many offenses.

[[AC: WebAnimation]]

[[AC: WebComics]]

[[AC: WebOriginal]]

[[AC: WesternAnimation]]

* They accidentally did this on ''{{The Simpsons}}'' in which Homer jettisons the two presidential candidates out of Kang and Kodos' ship.

* Happens rather accidentally to either Jeebs or his brother (Or both?) in an episode of MenInBlack.

**

*** A mook did the same thing to The Flash in a much earlier episode, luckily Green Lantern managed to rescue him in time.

[[AC:VideoGames]]

* In ''MassEffect 2'', while in the strip club Afterlife on Omega, Aria's batarian bodyguard threatens to "toss your sorry ass out the nearest airlock" if you forget who's ''really'' in charge (hint: [[spoiler: it's Aria]]).

* In the in-game tutorial for the StarTrek MMO, you are required to space a number of borg drones by teleporting them into a corridor that is open to space, though safely on the other side of an atmospheric ForceField from where you are standing.
* The first level of the Episode IV room of Lego Star Wars gives players the opportunity to space as many imperials as you have time for during a level replay.

<<|SpeculativeFictionTropes|>>
<<|TropesInSpace|>>

--->We eventually introduced a character named Mystek, but I killed her off when her miniseries was not approved. Mystek was supposed to be a creator-owned character, developed under a first-look deal, and I was instructed to put her into JLTF to introduce her to the fans in preparation for her miniseries. Then there was no series, so I shoved her out an airlock in JLTF #32.
* In the MarvelStarWars series, one story has Darth Vader giving an admiral one of his famous performance reviews aboard the "Tarkin" (Death Star superlaser without the Death Star). He tells the admiral to go for a walk and the "fresh air". Later, a tech notices an airlock cycling all by itself. Vader: "Curious, no doubt a faulty mechanism!"

Throwing someone out a spaceship or space station's airlock without a suit, or as some universes call it, "{{spacing}}," or simply "{{airlocking}}," is a common method of killing someone in sci-fi works involving space travel. This one is usually reserved as a last-ditch effort to get rid of a bad guy, though certain [[TheCaptain Captains]] have been known to use this as a method of execution. By all accounts, getting exposed to the hard vacuum of space is not a pleasant way to die, and the effects of this on the body are covered in much more detail on the ExplosiveDecompression page.

Throwing someone out a spaceship or space station's airlock without a suit, or as some universes call it, "spacing," or simply "airlocking," is a common method of killing someone in sci-fi works involving space travel. This one is usually reserved as a last-ditch effort to get rid of a bad guy, though certain [[TheCaptain Captains]] have been known to use this as a method of execution. By all accounts, getting exposed to the hard vacuum of space is not a pleasant way to die, and the effects of this on the body are covered in much more detail on the ExplosiveDecompression page.

** In FadingSuns this is what happens to you when you piss off the Guilders.

[[AC: NewMedia]]
* In ''SchlockMercenary'', Petey dumps a bunch of space marines out of an airlock that wasn't there until he boarded the ship. (He didn't just cut a hole; he "installed" a complete airlock.) But the marines are all wearing PoweredArmor, so they should be able to reach one of the other ships nearby.
* In one of the fillers for {{SSDD}} the misconceptions about throwing people out the airlock were adressed, apparently spacing is a slow and painful way to die and they just stay in the airlock until poked with a stick though if you have a window in the airlock you can [[http://www.poisonedminds.com/d/20090515.html watch them WRIGGLE!!]]
* Used in a ''StarWars'' parody on ''RobotChicken'', when Vader gets rid of Jar Jar this way: "If this is the escape, then where the pod?"
* In [[HomestarRunner Strong Bad's]] film Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective, [[spoiler:Craig]] (played by [[spoiler:The Cheat]]) is disposed of in this way. Due to the cheap production of the film and the fact that this scene is shot in Strong Bad's basement, [[spoiler:Craig]] is simply kicked into a dryer which is covered in aluminum foil to look like an airlock.

* In the Marvel ''StarWars'' series, one story has Darth Vader giving an admiral one of his famous performance reviews aboard the "Tarkin" (Death Star superlaser without the Death Star). He tells the admiral to go for a walk and the "fresh air". Later, a tech notices an airlock cycling all by itself. Vader: "Curious, no doubt a faulty mechanism!"

* General Grievous does this to ''himself'' in ''StarWars Episode III'', but in order to escape the Jedi (he can survive in space, and had a grappling hook that allowed him to reattach to the ship). Blast panels come down soon after to prevent others from getting sucked out. One wonders why he didn't take the opportunity to do a proper job of killing the Jedi by slicing a hole in the panels with one of the lightsabers he kept on his person once he was safely anchored to the hull.

* In ''MassEffect 2'', while in the strip club Afterlife on Omega, Aria's batarian bodyguard threatens to "toss your sorry ass out the nearest airlock" if you forget who's ''really'' in charge (hint: [[spoiler: it's Aria.]]