History Main / ThrownOutTheairLock

* In the ''Star Wars: The Force Unleashed'' games, in levels set in a space environment (such as on a spacecraft), throwing someone out a window will break the window, space them, cause the ever-so-popular "gale-force winds" that will suck out anybody too close (except yourself), and then a safety door will slam down and cut off the wind.

-->-- '''Captain Mal Reynolds''', ''{{Firefly}}'', episode "Ariel."

* 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!]]"

* An episode of ''{{Farscape}}'' had a kamikaze baddie that could magnetically attach herself to metal, and guide some NegativeSpaceWedgie missile. At the end of the episode, after she escapes her cage and attaches herself to a wall, Crighton nonchalantly informs her that she attached herself ''to an airlock'', and a detachable one to boot. Moments later, the airlock itself is thrown out, taking her with it.

* ''BlakesSeven''. Servalan leaves a magnetic bomb in the airlock of Warlord Zukan's spacecraft. Zukan sends in his aide to remove it, blowing him out the airlock the moment he detaches the bomb from the metal wall. Unfortunately the bomb explodes at that point fatally crippling the spacecraft, so the warlord dies anyway.

* 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 [[spoiler:wrap themselves in thermal insulation]]. With two men holding onto Capa's spacesuit, the door is opened ([[spoiler:manually by a crew member 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 crew member [[spoiler:strikes part of the spaceship and is knocked free of their grasp;]] the others survive.

* In one of the Jedi Knight games by Lucas Arts, the player can depressurize an entire hanger bay, sucking at least five poor bastards out with gale-force speed.

* 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 inconspicuous TrapDoor opens under them instead.

* Though not technically through an airlock, a [[RedShirt nameless female officer]] was spaced through a hull breach in the 2009 ''[[Film/StarTrek Star Trek]]''.

** Another Star Wars novel, the recent ''[[LegacyOfTheForce Exile]]'', has, halfway through the book, a {{brainwashed}} space admiral open up all the doors on a ship that needed to be gotten rid of. All the airlocks and vents and everything. Everyone loses their air, except for the admiral, who is ensconed on the spare bridge. The insane admiral had done all this after overhearing some code words the Captain used (then killing him).

** D'Argo is accidentially spaced when he is ejected from Moya in "They've Got a Secret", however due to his Luxan physiology, he survives. Over the course of the series, most of Moya's crew (save Aeryn, Zhaan and Sikozu) find themselves spaced (unintentionally or intentionally), but all survive with little if any ill effects. Most notably, during the "Look at the Princess" trilogy Crichton spaces himself without any form of spacesuiy or protection in a desperate attempt to escape a doomed spacecraft, and is able to survive for more than a minute before he is able to get himself on board a nearby craft. The only ill effects are frostbite-like symptoms that are virtually shrugged off a few scenes later.

* 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!!]]
* In ''[=~8-Bit Theater~=]'' an old man is shoved out of an airlock, of an airship, by the heroes, for being annoying.

* Used in ''{{Transformers}}'', where the heavily damaged Decepticons were thrown out into space so that Astrotrain could...well, it was bad physics, but they needed to lose weight or something bad would happen. Naturally, being machines, this didn't immediately kill them, but it was implied that eventually their batteries would run dry or they'd drift into a sun.

**** There is also the problem of chemical components. Most specifically oils and liquid fuels they might be keeping around - not to mention using to lubricate themselves. No atmosphere means perfect vacuum means no pressure, and a lack of pressure can cause things to evaporate when they dont want them to, and generally cause havoc with anything that changes state too easily.

* The fate of TheMole in the ''Series/WingCommanderAcademy'' episode "Red and Blue", RewardedAsATraitorDeserves.

* ConkersBadFurDay throws an alien out an airlock, even if it is blatently spoofing the same scene from {{Alien}}.

* Mentioned in SpaceQuest 5. When Roger asks why the Eureka's captaincy is vacant, Droole mentions that the last captain had an "unfortunate accident" in the airlock. The nonchalant way it's written and the snarky attitude of the crew more than imply that Droole, Flo, and Cliffy arranged the "accident."

* In the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed games, in levels set in a space environment (such as on a spacecraft), throwing someone out a window will break the window, space them, cause the ever-so-popular "gale-force winds" that will suck out anybody too close (except yourself), and then a safety door will slam down and cut off the wind.

* A variation occurs in SonicAdventure2, where Sonic is trapped in a pod and ejected from the Arc. [[NoOneCouldSurviveThat We see him plummet towards Earth before exploding.]] [[spoiler:Of course, he survives and comes back just in time to fight Shadow for the second time.]]

* [[DoctorWho The Doctor]] only takes Adam Mitchell home after he royally screws up, and Adam says "Blimey. I thought you were gonna chuck me out of an airlock." Not that the TARDIS has one as it could generate an atmosphere in vacuum.

* The fate of TheMole in the ''WingCommander Academy'' episode ''Red and Blue'', RewardedAsATraitorDeserves.

->''"I hear tell they used to keelhaul traitors back in the day. I don't have a keel to haul you by, so..."''

* 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.

* 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 in the "fresh air." Later, a tech notices an airlock cycling all by itself. Vader: "Curious, no doubt a faulty mechanism!"

* The first two ''{{Film/Alien}}'' movies end with a xenomorph getting blown out a ship's airlock. As does the fourth one.
** IN the fourth film, the monster is not simply shoved bodily out of an airlock, but sucked into the vacuum of space through a small broken port window. It was not pretty.

* 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 [[spoiler:wrap themselves in thermal insulation]]. With two men holding onto Capa's spacesuit, the door is opened ([[spoiler:manually by a crew member 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 crew member [[spoiler:strikes part of the spaceship and is knocked free of their grasp;]] the others survive.

** 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; he is able to get to his feet again, but the payload has already separated. He must leap from one airlock to the other and climb inside before the boosters fire.

* In 2001: A Space Odyssey, [[spoiler:HAL 9000 kills Frank Poole]] by maneuvering [[spoiler:Poole's]] space pod and using the gripper arms while he 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.

* Used in Tom Godwin's short story "The Cold Equations". [[spoiler:In this specific instance, contra the general rule above, the air lost due to the spacing would probably have been closely calculated.]]

** ''RocketShipGalileo'': one of the heroes threatens to do this to a Nazi prisoner to get him to talk. He has to partially carry it out before the Nazi cracks.

** In addition, Mal threatens to do this to Simon in the pilot if he fails to save Kaylee, who is currently laid up with a nasty gunshot wound after being accidentally shot by the Fed trying to bring Simon in, since Simon had refused to treat her unless Mal got them away from the Feds:

*** [[{{Ripsaw}} I]] saw it more as a MamaBear scenario.

** ''The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress'', except that the airlock is for the city's pressure enclosure, not on a ship.
** ''Rocket Ship Galileo'': one of the heroes threatens to do this to a Nazi prisoner to get him to talk. He has to partially carry it out before the Nazi cracks.
** ''The Rolling Stones'', but here it is a trope [[spoiler:used by various family members when plotting and writing scripts for a successful commercial space opera serving as an income source for the family, the original scripts having been written by the Grandma character Hazel Mead Stone.]]

* In the episode Travelers of ''StargateAtlantis'', Larrin threatens to drop Sheppard out of Hangar Bay, going as far as opening the doors, leaving him standing on a force shield. Though she doesn't actually voice the threat beyond saying "Don't worry. You're safe as long as the force shield doesn't malfunction, and that almost never happens." Her crew previously state they assume she blew the last man who disappointed her out into space, though this could simply be posturing.

* Cap'n Crosby from ''FarOutThere'' is known to threaten people with this. [[http://faroutthere.smackjeeves.com/comics/1030263/page-113-and-this-is-why-you-dont-cross-the-capn/ And he will, too]].

* In 8-BitTheater an old man is shoved out of an airlock, of an airship, by the heroes, for being annoying.

* ''VentureBrothers'' - Brock is nearly sucked into space without a helmet when a space station hatch opens - being Brock he survives, but coughs up something big.

* About halfway though the 2002 animated Disney movie ''Disney/TreasurePlanet'', Mr. Arrow (one of Jim Hawkins' best friends) actually ends up being killed by an evil alien pirate named Scroop who murders Arrow by throwing him out of an airlock on the side of the RLS Legacy (the spaceship Jim is riding in) and into outer space. Later, Jim after discovering that it was Scroop's fault that Mr. Arrow has died on their way to Treasure Planet, he actually gets his revenge on the villain by yes, throwing Scroop out of an airlock (and tying him up inside a pirate flag located outside the ship) just like how Mr. Arrow met his end.

* About halfway though the 2002 animated Disney movie ''Disney/TreasurePlanet'', Mr. Arrow (one of Jim Hawkins' best friends) actually ends up being killed by an evil alien pirate named Scroop who murders Arrow by throwing him out of an airlock on the side of the RLS Legacy (the spaceship Jim is riding in) and into outer space. Later, Jim after discovering that it was Scroop's fault that Mr. Arrow has died on their way to Treasure Planet, he actually get his revenge on the villain by yes, throwing Scroop out of an airlock just like how Mr. Arrow met his end.

* If you manage to find the Comm Satellite secret level of ''{{Quake}} 2'', you'll notice a threshold with danger markings at the beginning of the level. Beyond the threshold is [[SchmuckBait a stash of goodies placed conveniently near an opened airlock]]. Do the math.

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->''"You know, I hear tell they used to keelhaul traitors back in the day. I don't have a keel to haul you on, so..."''