->'''Attila the Hun''': ''No shoot fire stick in space canoe! Cause explosive decompression!''\\
'''Zapp Brannigan''': ''Spare me your space-age TechnoBabble, Attila the Hun.''\\
--''{{Futurama}}''

->"''Like any properly trained man in good health, he could survive in vacuum for at least a minute -- if he had time to prepare for it. But there had been no time; he could only count on the normal fifteen seconds of consciousness before his brain was starved and anoxia overcame him.''"\\
--''2001: A Space Odyssey''

Outer space is not friendly. Woe betide anyone foolish enough to step into it unprotected (or unfortunate enough to get {{thrown out the airlock}}): they'll pop like a turkey with a grenade up its backside.

Well, that's the movie version. In fact, as unfriendly as the vacuum of space is, the body's made of stern enough stuff to stay in one piece. When you step outside, you've got about 15 seconds before you pass out from anoxia (which is, of course, less time than most people can go between breaths if pressed; however air cannot be kept in the lungs), a couple of minutes at best until you die from the same, and all sorts of nasty decompression injuries and having exposed areas swelling up and ohmygod the water just boiled off my eyes in between, but you never ''quite'' go boom: remember, technically speaking, your blood is ''not'' in a vacuum: it's in ''you'', so swelling and boiling blood only occurs toward your squishiest, outermost layer of capillaries. Incidentally, holding your breath would be worse than useless; the difference in pressure would cause a serious and fatal embolysm even from the smallest amount of air in the lungs. Worse, for breathing the chest and lungs work on the principle that the pressure inside the lungs and outside the chest is roughly the same. Lacking the outside pressure while air is contained in the lungs they can overinflate and rupture, killing you even after you may be rescued.

A classic piece of HollywoodScience; in fact this is so widespread that audiences are outraged when it ''doesn't'' happen (see TheCoconutEffect and RealityIsUnrealistic). Discussed in detail [[http://www.sff.net/people/Geoffrey.Landis/vacuum.html here]].

This one can happen in real life if you get a ''really'' high pressure gradient - from above-normal pressure down to atmospheric pressure, say, or to be more precise, about 8 or 9 atm (atmospheres) to 1 atm (normal atmospheric pressure). If you're interested, google for the "Byford Dolphin" - but beware of HighOctaneNightmareFuel and NauseaFuel.

The term "Explosive Decompression" is legitimate, but it refers to the speed at which the decompression occurs, not the result or cause. There have been numerous cases of explosive decompression on aircraft (several of which led to crashes), but while it certainly can cause part of the ''airplane'' to explode (due to whatever fault caused to decompression in the first place), the usual result for passengers is either slow hypoxia, or if they are really unlucky, a chance to go skydiving without a parachute.[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:In-flight_airliner_depressurization]]

See SpaceIsCold for another way that space ''doesn't'' instantly kill you. See also ContinuousDecompression for how HollywoodScience handles ''actual'' Explosive Decompression.
----
!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

* ''{{Transformers}}: The Reign of Starscream'' #2 shows Starscream capturing a human and then putting him in his cockpit for the return trip to Cybertron. Since Cybertronians don't breathe and don't need pilots, they don't pressurize their altmodes' operators' spaces. The poor human pops when Starscream leaves the atmosphere.
* An old ''WeirdScience'' story had people vanishing instantly when tossed into space. Weird science indeed...

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Fan Fiction ]]

* In Halo: Halos in Space, when the back door of Joe Chief's ship is blown open, one of the army guys falls out and explodes in space.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

* Pretty much every time a low-budget sci-fi flick does vacuum exposure, it's Explosion Time. If the astronaut gets so much as a rip in his space suit, he'll be painting it with his internal fluids.
* Probably the first-ever appearance of this was in the 1954 SF movie ''Riders to the Stars'', in which this happens to one of the titular astronauts. He drifts for a moment right in front of the camera view, so that we can see that he's been turned into an Instant Mummy. (Ok, technically he was freeze-dried, but it's the same basic idea).
* The JamesBond film ''LicenceToKill'' features a "Byford Dolphin" style decompression involving a henchman, a decompression chamber and an axe. This one gets frequently trimmed by the local MediaWatchdog.
** This was shown over a relatively long time-period using a very small aperture; ironically, this followed a somewhat pompous lecture by Timothy Dalton about James Bond films becoming "more realistic." (In the same film, an Electric Moray-fish is shown capable of shooting visible and fatal lightning-bolts).
*** In fairness, he said "more realistic", not "true to life". Ever seen Moonraker?
* The 1981 movie ''{{Outland}}'' features two professional assassins that are sent on Jupiter's moon Io to kill off the main character O'Niel, who has discovered an illegal drug operation. Both die due to ExplosiveDecompression: one paints a duct red when O'Niel depressurizes it (after an amusing "ballooning up" shot), the other dies when he is led into shooting the glass windows in the room he's in. We're then treated to a scene in which his body explosively shatters as the air rushing out blows him into space.
** Explosive Decompression happened frequently in this movie, which opened with an anonymous character exploding inside his space-suit. Another is exposed more slowly in a space-elevator, and is afterward shown with his guts exploded.
* Done ludicrously poorly in the movie ''TotalRecall'', where being exposed to the surface of Mars gives characters eyes the size of tangerines. Note that Mars ''has'' an atmosphere, albeit not one humans could breathe and survive. Even more ludicrous: after returning to "normal" pressure, those tangerine eyes ''go back to normal'', with ''no ill effects'' - they aren't even ''bloodshot''.
** The film does indicate that the entire experience ''might' be a dream, implanted by future tech; this is foreshadowed by such statements as "two-headed monsters (Kuato) and "a blue sky on Mars" (the "Ego-trip's" programmed ending), and the hero and the villain becoming friends. As the movie begins, Arnold (Quaid) even has a nightmare about the very type of explosive decompression happening, which indicates that this is simply his vision of it.
* In a scene near the end of ''[[Film/{{Alien}} Alien Resurrection]]'', the air pressure inside the ship is apparently powerful enough to push a xenomorph through a hole about the size of a ''quarter''.
** The pressure-difference supposedly sucks his blood out through the hole, and then the blood-drained corpse followed. Even if this was possible, the pressure holding the xenomorph to the window would only be about 30 pounds at most, while the xenomorph had above-human strength, so he should have been able to pull away from it.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

* It doesn't actually happen in the ''XWingSeries'', but after the bridge of his capital ship is breached, General Solo reflects that if the crew can't get into a pressurized area before the bridge is sealed off, they're going to experience the "joys of explosive decompression". To be fair, he might not actually know how people in space die.
** This is interesting, since in Episode III, General Grevious decompresses the ship in order to escape using his droid-body, even though he is shown breathing; meanwhile Obi-Wan, Anakin and Palpatine are shown suffocating from the vacuum, until they can close the airlock.
*** Justified Trope. Several of the books point out that the parts of Grevious's body containing his organs are pressurized ''specifically'' so he can do this in a pinch
** TimothyZahn's ''[[HandOfThrawn Specter of the Past]]'' mentions that it's possible to do a "cold-shirt crossing", passing through a small stretch of vacuum to get to a ship. Has to be short, though. Luke eventually goes into a Jedi hibernation trance, becoming unconscious but not having to worry about the air thing, and when Mara Jade retrieves him he's completely fine, [[SpaceIsCold not even cold to the touch]]. Zahn is generally good about knowing how space works - he uses the AsteroidThicket, but that's about it.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' made this same mistake in the episode "Disaster". Geordi advises Dr Crusher that they should hold their breath and resist the temptation to exhale before decompressing the cargo bay. Crusher does not correct him, instead mentioning that they might rupture a few surface vessels in the vacuum. You'd think the ''ship's chief medical officer'' would know a little bit more about the functions of the human cardiovascular and respiratory systems than that.
* A 1960s ''{{Doctor Who}}'' episode reportedly received a number of complaints due to the fact that the people who were flushed out of the airlock floated in space rather than exploding.
**When the new series episode ''The Impossible Planet'' aired in 2006, there was a lot of debate about the lack of explosive decompression on one message board this editor visits. And then again, when the episode ''42'' aired in 2007...
** Let's not forget the sequel to ''The Impossible Planet'', ''The Satan Pit'', in which Rose Tyler grabs a bolt gun and shoots out the front window of a spaceship. Not only do she and the others in the spaceship keep on breathing after the window is shattered and the air rushes out, but Rose then unbuckles the seat belt of the villain, allowing him to get sucked out of the spaceship by the vacuum she deliberately created. This episode of ''{{Doctor Who}}'' gives this troper a massive headache.
***The nearby black hole might, just might, have had something to do with it.
*** To be fair, the science in ''DoctorWho'' is generally [[CriticalResearchFailure very, very bad]]. [[RuleOfFun But that's not really the point]].
* ''RedDwarf'', "Confidence and Paranoia": Confidence, suffering from an ego the size of a small galaxy, declares "Oxygen is for losers!" and takes his helmet off outside of the ship. He then promptly explodes.
* Implied (then averted) in an episode of ''KnightRider'': The evil [=KARR=] starts to drain the air out of his cabin with a hostage inside, saying "Have you ever seen someone ''explode'' in a vacuum?"
* Happens in ''BlakesSeven''- [[spoiler: To {{BRIAN BLESSED}}!]] In that episode of ''Blake's 7'', it is established in prior dialogue that the explosive effect is due to being teleported beyond the maximum range of the teleport device, rather than exposure to vacuum.
*Mentioned, though not shown, in ''Defying Gravity'', an otherwise good show-disappointing, really.
* Averted in StarTrek The Next Generation where Dr Crusher and Geordi have to decompress the cargo bay they're trapped in to extinguish a chemical fire. As best this troper can remember, Dr Crusher's description of the symptoms they would experience, and the actual depiction closely match what this article says would actually happen. They barely manage to reactivate the force field after decompression and pass out briefly as atmosphere is restored.
* An episode of ''Space Precinct'' had an alien with [[BloodyMurder acid blood]]. When shot its green blood dissolved through the hull causing the corpse to be sucked out into space. A few seconds later it inflates and bursts.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* Most of the ''SpaceQuest'' games allow killing the main character by exposure to vacuum. The effects are inconsistent depending on the humor value, but for the same reason lean heavily towards explosions.
* An underwater example can be found in ''[[EccoTheDolphin Ecco II: Tides Of Time]]'', where Vortex drones explode if they get too close to the surface. Neither Ecco nor any other creature have a similar risk of decompression.
* In the Mothership Zeta add-on for {{Fallout}} 3, at one point you need to [[spoiler:depressurize a section of the ship and walk through it wearing a space suit. However, if you do not wear the suit, or remove it while inside, YourHeadAsplode.]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* Used when ''TheSimpsons''' Itchy and Scratchy go into space. Also when Homer and Bart accidentally board a shuttle of famous people headed for the sun, then jump out the airlock to get away from Rosie O'Donnel. They blow up and pop like balloons.
**Scratchy doesn't explode, his head simply blows up like a balloon; it explodes when Itchy pricks it with a pin.
* Played for laughs in ''{{Sealab 2021}}'', where a couple people from Spacelab fall victim to this.
* Used in ''Green Lantern: First Flight'': One of Kanjar Ro's minions accidentally shoots a basketball-sized hole in the hull of their spacecraft while trying to kill Hal Jordan. Cue said minion being sucked through the hole he made (bloodlessly, but it's still pretty graphic), while Hal simply chains himself to a pipe then plugs the hole when the minion has finished going through it.
* In the {{Robot Chicken}} episode "Maurice Was Caught", little orphan Annie is given Mars for her sweet sixteen party, and upon visiting it, trips and loses her space suit helmet. [[{{YourHeadAsplode}} Guess what happens?]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* The aforementioned [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin#Diving_bell_accident Byford Dolphin]] accident is perhaps the only real case of truly Explosive Decompression. [[{{Squick}} Be warned that the results are not for the faint of heart]] or [[NightmareFuel those with an overly graphic imagination.]]
* Similarly to the BD incident, a diver who barely escaped the bends had to stay in a decompression chamber. A maintainance worker opened the hatch by accident, and the results were ''not'' pretty.

!!Subversions and Exceptions

!!Examples:

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

* On ''CowboyBebop'', Spike survived a quick trip through vacuum while jumping from his fighter to another ship. He came up short, but adjusted his trajectory using the recoil from his handgun so he could reach something to push himself off of. The villain of the episode realistically dies from decompression without exploding after he plows his space-truck into an asteroid, shattering the cockpit canopy.
* ''{{Gundam}}'' and ''ZetaGundam'', where holes are blasted into colonies on multiple occasions; however, unless you were in the vicinity of the hole, no one worries about them that much.
** For a better aversion, Quess Paraya in Char's Counterattack jumps directly though space to Char's Sazabi without a space suit, taking the effort to ball herself up and tumble thorough vacuum, with Char reacting well enough to keep her from floating off into the infinite nothing. Camille Biden in Zeta Gundam subverts this by opening his helmet visor in vacuum while talking to Emma Sheen. After the helmet opens, the sound of his voice properly cuts out, and Emma closes his helmet visor within a second.
*** Uso has to do the same thing as Quess in ''VictoryGundam'' to get out of his damaged mobile suit. For some reason, the talking ball toy Haro blows a soap bubble to protect him.
**Also averted in ''GundamSeed'', when the Archangel has to take water from what is basically a spaceship graveyard in order to survive, they find they are taking it from the ruins of a destroyed colony. It is averted when dead woman is seen floating in place still clutching her baby, both very much intact and unblemeshed.
* ''SuperDimensionFortressMacross'' played with this. When Hikaru and Minmei are trapped in the titular ship's bulkhead, the former seals his ordinary flightsuit and helmet with duct tape, holds his breath, and leaps out of the ship in order to catch a perfectly preserved tuna that was pulled along when the ship [[TeleportersAndTransporters folded]] to Pluto (which is ironic, since S. Ataria Island (Macross Island in the Robotech remake)) itself [[SpaceIsCold flash-froze]] during the fold.) He even tosses random tools and debris to change his momentum, and is no worse for wear when he returns to the ship.
**Of course, he is holding his breath the whole time, limiting the trip to about a minute. Plus, he's not sure if he'll survive, and the plan was to try and get to another airlock, the fish only becoming a diversion.
*** In the ''{{Robotech}}'' remake, the tuna was changed to become the primary purpose for the excursion.
** ''Macross'' also has another example in a later episode where [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Breetai]] is pulled out an airlock and manages to pull himself along the hull to another airlock and get back in with no long term effects. Of course it does help that he's from a race of giant [[SuperSoldier super soldiers]]
*** That fact also helps [[HalfHumanHybrids one-quarter Zentradi]] Ranka Lee survive exposure to near vacuum in the sequel series ''{{Macross Frontier}}''. Although one still has to wonder how only partially protected (and non-Zentradi) Alto managed to fare just as well in his rescue of her
* In ''CrestOfTheStars'' Jinto and the old baron he befriended are rescued by Lafiel by exposing their "cell" to open space and riding through vacuum along the rope she extended from the shuttle.
** She then gets a hard time from the higher-ups for that, as knowingly depressurizing a structure is a ''criminal offence'' in the [[TheEmpire Abh Empire]].
* Somewhat ignored in the last season of ''{{Sonic X}}''. Chris and Dr. Eggman being human, wear space suits in space, but apparently Sonic and friends don't even need oxygen.
* Subverted in ''JoJosBizarreAdventure''. Although it isn't a fight in space, there's a fight in a total vacuum, and the issues of blood boiling and differences in pressure are used to their full extents.
*In ''[[BusouRenkin Buso Renkin]]'', not only can Victor and Kazuki survive quite easily on the surface of the moon while in thier [[SuperMode 'Victor' state]], despite wearing only regular clothes [or, in Victor's case, a lioncloth], they can also talk audibly to one another. On top of this, both can survive for quite some time simply drifting in the vacuum of space [though Kazuki, at least, is unconscious, and his near-indestructible [[EmpathicWeapon Buso Renkin lance]] shows signs of damage, presumably from the vacuum].

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

* Comics sometimes do things right - but for the wrong reasons. For example, {{Superman}} is often seen in space with nothing more than a breath mask - because he's apparently tough enough that the rapid pressure changes don't matter. (In fact, if he's high enough up, the extra solar energy he can absorb probably keeps him going.) This is fairly common among the high-power superheroes and -villains, like Lobo, Thor, and Starfire. It's not necessarily done because the writer understands that exposure to vacuum doesn't mean ''instant'' death, though - more likely to impress upon the reader how powerful the character is.
** Or, in Lobo's case, just due to the RuleOfCool. Not only can he survive unaided in space, he can also ''speak audibly'' [[SpaceIsNoisy in it]] - something no one else in the {{DCU}} can do.
--->'''Animal Man (Buddy Baker)''': Who the hell is Lobo? And why is there a huge biker dude standing in the vacuum of space smoking a cigar?
*** Pre-Crisis Superman used to do it often, however. Speak that is.. not smoke.
**** [[NewPowersAsThePlotDemands Super-ventriloquism!]]
***** BatmanCanBreatheInSpace.
* In a Marvel example, there was one ''{{X-Men}}'' scene where Deathbird kicks Storm out an airlock of a Brood ship, and is rescued after 30 seconds. She makes a full recovery in the same issue.
* Kitty Pryde managed a minute or so mucking about the outside of a space station during an evacuation attempt. She survived by hyperventilating before becoming intangible. To be fair she didn't think this would work either.
*In the JusticeLeagueOfAmerica graphic novel "Welcome to the working week", Batman is observed going through "training" that involves willingly exposing himself to Vacuum so he can build up a resistance to it. He lastes 24 seconds before J'onn pulled him out. The symptoms he suffered were more in keeping with the realistic results of getting exposed to Vacuum (except he didn't lose consciousness because...well, he's BATMAN.)
**24 seconds is well within the stated realm of consciousness for a trained human; also, Batman has better aerobic-capacity than Richard Simmons.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

* ''EventHorizon'': A longer exposure gives gorier results, but the victim survives.
* ''StarTrek: First Contact'': Worf gets a rip in his suit leg, ties it off with a tourniquet made from a passing Borg's arm, and keeps on fighting.
** ''Star Trek'' pressure-suits are said to be self-sealing against punctures.
** Also, he's not human. An air leak is not the issue, it is a matter of pressure. We can assume that the suit is not a solid unit, and that that leak wouldn't cause his helmet, where he breathes, to decompress. While his suit may have lost pressure, sealing it would presumably let it repressurise.
* ''TitanAE'' not only has two characters survive temporary vacuum exposure during an emergency transfer from one spaceship to another, they also (a) use the rapid blast of air out of the cockpit of the first ship to get them moving and (b) use a fire extinguisher as an ''ad hoc'' rocket for even more thrust. Notably, immediately before entering the vaccuum, one character orders another to exhale.
** Ironicly, the 'exhale' part was a change to the script after the animation had been done. If you watch, you can see them take a deep breath. This was a case of the writers catching their original error, but could not correct the animation.
* The film ''MissionToMars'' is a long way from scientific credibility for the most part, but subverts this one for the most part. Woody takes off his helmet, exhales with a whoosh, dies peacefully of anoxia... and then freezes almost instantly. The writers missed out on that physics lesson.
* Parodied in ''{{Toy Story}}'' where Buzz Lightyear feared his eyeballs would be sucked from his sockets when Woody retracted his helmet.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

* Averted in ''[=~2001: A Space Odyssey~=]'', although in both book and film, Dave holds his breath. This isn't wise, because it would damage your lungs.
** Dave does ''not'' hold his breath in the film. In fact he is distinctly shown ''preparing'' for rapid decompression, by visibly forcing all air out of his lungs with extreme effort, to the extent that he looks like a serious victim of constipation.
** Arthur C. Clarke also averts it in the novel ''Earthlight'', in which one spaceship rescues the crew of another (crippled) spaceship despite a lack of spacesuits or docking gear, by getting close enough to transfer everyone quickly. A few of them panic and don't make it, but everyone else comes through fine. Clarke also went too far in the other direction. They remain alive and conscious in vacuum for ''several minutes''. Although when he wrote ''Earthlight'', it was not known just how quickly blood dumps oxygen into vacuum.
*** If a person hyperventilates prior to exposure, they can remain alive for several minutes-- although consciousness is not a given. Likewise in the novel 3001, Frank Poole is revived after being frozen and unconscious in a vacuum for 1000 years.
** In one of Clarke's short stories, the narrator is one of several people trapped in a habitation module that comes loose from a space station. Again, a rescue is effected without suits or serious mishap from the brief exposure to vacuum... but those few seconds of exposure to raw sunlight in Earth's orbit gives the protagonist the worst ''sunburn'' he's ever had.
* In Elizabeth Bear's ''Dust'', the main characters are capable of floating around in the vacuum for longer-than-normal periods of time due to the nanite colonies in their blood which provide them with oxygen and repair any physical damage. It's still not what you'd call fun, though.
* In SandyMitchell's CiaphasCain novel ''Death or Glory'', set in the ''{{Warhammer 40000}}'' universe, Cain and his [[{{Sidekick}} aide]] Jurgen are both trapped on a depressurized deck when their troop transport takes a torpedo strike. Despite the fact that they run out of breathable air pretty quickly, Cain and Jurgen manage to survive long enough to man a nearby escape capsule.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* An episode of ''{{Stargate SG-1}}'' had a thief being beamed out of the ship ''Odyssey''. He ended up hitting the glass at the front of the ship, and he didn't explode, but he was still quite dead.
** An earlier episode had Teal'c and O'Neill venture briefly into the vacuum of space so they could be transported out of an out of control space fighter, without exploding, or any lingering effects, as they were only in the vacuum for a few seconds.
***They were also wearing flight-suits I believe, which have anti-g-force adaptations, some of which would help negate decompression (at least, below the waist.
* The rebooted ''BattlestarGalactica'' ejected Tyrol and Cally into vacuum to a waiting Raptor (with slightly more in the way of bad aftereffects, remedied by medical attention). The cargo bay they were in was decompressing anyway.
** And then [[spoiler:ejected Cally into space for good, with much the same result]].
* John Crichton from ''{{Farscape}}'' once ''jumped from a ship to another'' while holding his breath, using kickback from a pulse rifle to navigate. The effects on his eyes and extremities were more accurately portrayed than usual. And Ka D'Argo's [[BizarreAlienBiology species]] can survive for up to a quarter of an [[strike:arn]] hour in hard vacuum.
* Totally ignored in ''PowerRangers In Space'' and ''Power Rangers Lost Galaxy'', both of which showed characters - perfectly normal non-ranger characters - traveling unprotected in space and on the lunar surface, in one instance for ''several hours''. Many consider there to be ample evidence that in the ''PowerRangers'' universe, space in general maintains a breathable atmosphere and comfortable temperatures.
** There have been a number of episodes where the viewer saw the effect of a hard vacuum, though. In episodes from both season six and season eight, once an airlock of a ship in orbit was opened, everything inside was sucked outside, and characters fought to hold on. Most of the time in the Power Ranger Universe', Ranger-(and villain-)tech provides suitable (albeit artificial) pressure, atmosphere and gravity for unprotected humans to survive with no ill effect. During other occasions, the hard vacuum will only do what the plot requires it to do.
* The ''{{Firefly}}'' episode "Bushwhacked" had ''Serenity'' bumping into an unexploded corpse, from an abandoned ship nearby. The body itself was undamaged, but Jayne does make a comment that the man's blood would "boil out his ears," though Jayne himself isn't the most educated person in the 'verse anyway.
* Frequently averted on ''MysteryScienceTheatre3000''. On the other hand, characters on that show are apparently able to breath in space. This makes sense for the 'bots, but not for anyone else. However, [[MST3KMantra if you're wondering how they eat and breathe, and other science facts...]]
* In ''StargateUniverse'' this is notably [[AvertedTrope averted]] within the pilot. There's a leak in the ship and they need to fix it but fixing it requires somebody to [[HeroicSacrifice heroically sacrifice themselves]]. When [[spoiler:the senator]] ends up doing it [[spoiler:his]] death is shown as relatively peaceful and the characters later remark that the body is still out there and they can't do much about it.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Radio ]]

* ''[=~The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy~=]'', of all things, correctly recognized that no exploding would occur, advising victims to hyperventilate and then exhale right before exposure.
** It even got the survival time about right - about 30 seconds, which is indeed survivable according to the site linked to at the top of this page (although you would only be conscious for about the first ten seconds).

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* A couple of RealLife counterexamples from TheOtherWiki:
** On one Shuttle mission, an astronaut drove a piece of metal through his glove and into his hand without noticing. His blood freeze-dried around the object and puncture, sealing the hole. He didn't even notice the damage until he was back inside.
** A high-altitude balloonist lost the pressure in one of his gloves for a long period. It eventually swelled up to twice its normal size and became completely useless, but recovered completely after a few hours when back on the ground.
*** This was from the ambient pressure in his suit, pushing the blood and other fluids from his body into his hand.
*** This is also right before he jumped from said altitude... He didn't tell anyone about it because he didn't want the mission cancelled. He jumped several times from "space" after this. He, for some reason, survived.
** A Russian space-capsule sprang a leak, causing it to decompress rapidly; one cosmonaut jumped up to fix it, but hit his head on the bulkhead in the zero-gravity, knocking himself unconscious. The other two were unable to free themselves from their safety-straps before they fell unconscious from the vacuum. All three died. Just to note, They apparently died within 40 seconds, Which is odd since it doesn't match most normal theories (Which state you could survive around two minutes, give or take 30 seconds).

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]

* A ''{{Warhammer 40000}}'' background book, ''The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer'', advises [[BadassNormal Imperial]] [[RedShirtArmy Guardsmen]] blown into space to "hold your breath; turn on your emergency light; recite the Litany of the Vacuum; kick your legs and swing your arms in a swimming motion towards the breach to propel yourself back into the ship; wait for rescue teams to locate you and bring you safely back onboard." This is on par with the less-than-helpful propaganda and outright lies the rest of the book contains.
** [[spoiler:"Addendum to previous editions: Men carrying the rank of major or above are now ordered to shoot dead any man who disobeys a direct order and tries to rescue comrades trapped in depressurized compartments. Chances of surviving such a disaster are exactly 0.00045%. Attempting a rescue operation will only exacerbate the problem. May the Emperor have mercy."]]
* ''{{Deadlands}}: Lost Colony'', being a SpaceWestern, has rules governing "ExplosiveDecompression." Any human trapped in a vaccum doesn't explode violently, or even necessarily die instantly, but it probably ''will'' kill an unprepared (or less-than-[[CharlesAtlasSuperpower Tonka tough]]) character in under a minute. {{Player Character}}s are much more likely to [[PlotArmor survive]], naturally.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* One of the levels in the video game ''{{Metroid}} Prime 3: Corruption'' is a derelict starship with one particular hallway that is open to space thanks to many broken windows. The heroine of the game wears a self-contained armor suit that would have no problems here anyways, but the titular Metroids that can attack the player in this hallway are clearly not affected by ExplosiveDecompression, as they'll hang out both inside and outside of the ship and float/phaseshift into the hallway when they notice you're there. As the creatures live from energy siphoned off of other beings and have no respiratory system to speak of, they don't have to deal with anoxia either.
** In addition, very early in the game, Samus ejects herself into space to reach another part of the ship. After riding along the underside of the ship and pulling herself into an airlock, the view switches to first-person again...to reveal that her visor is covered with ice crystals. Whoops. Possibly justified, though, considering that she departed from a waste disposal tank full of... [[UnfortunateImplications well, we hope it was just water...]], and the crystals appear on the outside of her visor.
** However, the fact that the Metroids can survive in space when their main weakness is ''cold'' makes [[strike:less]] [[SpaceIsCold perfect]] sense. The explanation at the top of the page may be in effect, or the mutated Phazon Metroids in question might not have the weakness.
*** Space may indeed be cold, but it's a vacuum and thus an insulator so thermal convection doesn't take place at an appreciable rate so metroids would have no problem dealing with it because I doubt they would radiate away body heat at a high rate. Also the water on Samus's visor should have boiled off when going into space rather than freezing.
** Also, in the first Metroid Prime, the intro level is the outside of a damaged space station. Since you're still outside, you have low-gravity astronaut jumping, and when you enter the airlock, debris floats in the air. However, when you pressurize the airlock to open the door inside, all the debris suddenly falls to the floor and you jump normally. It would seem that air pressure equals gravity here...
*** Justified if you assume that the "pressurization" mentioned by the control panel refers to establishing atmospheric conditions. Why waste energy making full artificial gravity outside the space station, right?
* Many video games outright ignore the dangers of being out in space without protective equipment. The blog for ''SmashBrosBrawl'' lampshades this [[http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/stages/stage04.html here]].
* In TheForceUnleashed there is a scene where [[spoiler: Vader betrays Starkiller and throws him out into space. Rather than exploding, Starkiller drifts along and is soon picked up by a droid and brought onto a medical ship. While the amount of time he actually spent in the vacuum is unclear, it did take extensive medical treatment to save his life.]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Webcomics ]]

* ''SchlockMercenary'' incorporated both the bad "hold your breath" advice and a footnote pointing out its badness in http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20010527.html, presumably trying to actively counter sci-fi's misinformation on the subject.
** The author justifies the statement "hold your breath" because the speaker was an alien who knew nothing about human biology.
* Subverted in the webcomic ''{{Narbonic}}'' ([[http://www.webcomicsnation.com/shaenongarrity/narbonic/series.php?view=archive&chapter=10011 here]]) where [[SmallGirlBigGun psychotic intern]] Mell throws Dave out of a space capsule, but lets him back in, after {{Mad Scientist}} Helen tells her the facts and she is disappointed that "it wasn't going to be all that cool-looking".

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

*In ''JusticeLeague,'' TheFlash is ejected into space by a villain, and suffers asphyxiation and frostbite, but is saved by Green Lantern.
* In the 90s ''FlashGordon'' cartoon, Flash and Dale are in an airlock that is decompressed. They actually hang on until the rush of air is over, then make it to another airlock to get back inside.
* In ''VentureBros'', Brock Sampson is sucked into space due to Dr. Venture's incompetence. He suffers asphyxiation and freezing; but due to his namesake strength and stamina, he is able to climb back into the space-station. He "coughed up some blood, and a chunk of something about the size of a kiwi fruit," but "it didn't look important so he didn't worry about it."
* Jedi Master Plo Koon manages to briefly survive in vacuum in an episode of ''StarWarsTheCloneWars'', thanks to his [[BizarreAlienBiology thick Kel Dor hide]]. Furthermore, he doesn't seem to show even the tiniest sign of discomfort, and even manages to [[BatmanCanBreatheInSpace fight as effectively as ever]].
** It wasn't a complete vaccum, simply low-pressure; the Clones were also able to survive for a short time in their body-armor.
** In the SW comic ''The Short, Happy Life Of Roons Sewell'', the titular Roons Sewell dies after the front of his Y-wing explodes, sending shrapnel into his chest and ejecting him in space. During the eulogy we see him floating out there. There are spatters on the inside of his helmet and he's very obviously dead, but also mostly intact.
** On the flip side, ''Jabba the Hutt: The Dynasty Trap'' has aliens spaced by Jabba [[LudicrousGibs popping like water balloons]]. Must be that BizarreAlienBiology [[FanWank striking again]].
* ''PhineasAndFerb'' got this mostly right - in "Out to Launch", at least two characters were exposed to space for a brief second without their helmets - and then simply plonked them on and got better. Though it's probably not that simple, at the time I thought it was ridiculous because they would be dead or paralyzed.

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