History Main / ExplosiveDecompression

That said, an explosive decompression can happen in real life if you get a ''really'' high-pressure gradient - from far 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). These pressure gradients are usually only found in decompression chambers meant to allow deep-sea divers to return to the surface without contracting the bends. These chambers are only ''slightly'' less dangerous than the alternative of having the divers spend hours underwater as they ascend ''very slowly''. If you're interested, Google the "Byford Dolphin" incident - but beware of NauseaFuel. Most space missions never come close to this, though, as they generally use pressures of 1 atm or less. To get an idea of how low that is: a soda can is pressurized at about 2 to 3 atmospheres above ambient pressure.

* In ''WesternAnimation/SupermanVsTheElite'', this is what Superman ''claims'' happened to Coldcast after launching him into orbit at Mach 7. Emphasis on ''claimed''.
-->'''Superman:''' He went into orbit at Mach 7. If you had super-hearing, any second you'd hear the "pop".

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* In ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'', Gremmy Thoumeaux uses his ImaginationBasedSuperpower to form a pocket of outer space around Kenpachi Zaraki. Kenpachi screams in silent agony as his lungs start to burst and his eyes almost pop out of his head... then being Kenpachi, simply flies out of the pocket and slashes at Gremmy.
* Averted in ''Anime/CowboyBebop'', when Spike transfers between ships using only earplugs for protection and a couple gunshots to adjust his trajectory. However, this aversion includes the common mistake of holding a deep breath, which in reality would cause serious lung damage as the depressurized air expands beyond lung capacity.

* ''Franchise/{{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' operator 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...
* In ''ComicBook/ScudTheDisposableAssassin,'' [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot the evil British Shakespearean actor astronaut werewolf]] undergoes this trope while in a stable orbit over earth. Since he is immortal, his body instantly reconstitutes itself only to explode again...and again, and again ad infinitum.

* 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.
* Downplayed in the 1972 low-budget sci-fi film ''Film/DoomsdayMachine''. During an attempted rape the airlock is unlocked by accident [[NoOshaCompliance due to an easily pressed button]] and rapist and victim are killed. They float around as their [[EyeScream eyes start bleeding]] but their heads don't explode.

* The ''Film/JamesBond'' film ''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.
** ''Film/KickAss'' has a scene similar enough to be a ShoutOut, though the LudicrousGibs in this film are caused by a giant microwave rather than a pressure chamber.
** Averted in another ''Film/JamesBond'' film, ''Film/{{Moonraker}}'', which had Bond expel the villain out an airlock. He seemed to freeze quickly but didn't explode. Considering how thoroughly the laws of physics were violated in the movie, it was surprising that they didn't go with that trope as well, though the {{Squick}} potential might have been a factor.

* Seen in ''Film/USMarshals'' when a fellow prisoner tries to kill the soon-to-be fugitive aboard a Marshals transport plane. His shot goes through one of the airplane windows, resulting in a rapidly widening hole in the fuselage through which several people on board are sucked out, and ultimately causing the plane to crash.
* ''Film/Leprechaun4InSpace'': This is how the Leprechaun is defeated. [[SpecialEffectsFailure The explosion however is clearly just reused footage of Dr. Mittenhand's death with a green filter.]]
* ''Film/AdAstra'' plays this trope straight when the main character kills the last [[ApesInSpace space baboon]] that broke free and killed the personnel of a Norwegian space station by depressurizing the compartment he trapped the baboon in, causing the murderous primate to instantly pop like a blood-filled balloon.

* Partial aversion in ''Literature/CiaphasCain: Death or Glory'', which is a little odd for the usually pretty soft-science ''[[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer40000}} 40k]]'' setting. Cain and Jurgen end up in hard vacuum after a hull breach but don't pop, and Amberley Vail's footnotes point the popping body out as a myth. However, Cain holds his breath in vacuum and doesn't suffer lung injuries.
* Played straight in the novelization of ''Film/TheBlackHole'', when besides being remarked explosive decompression is a messy way to die [[spoiler: Reinhardt suffers that fate as the control tower of the "Cygnus" is torn free from the ship]], his eyes being described as bulging from sudden decompression.
* In the 1935 ''The Red Peri'' by Stanley G. Weinbaum, the hero is captured by a SpacePirate [[PirateGirl Girl]] and held on her base on Pluto. She makes sure he doesn't get his hands on a spacesuit, but he later kidnaps her and is able to run to his spacecraft which is parked a thousand feet away in a vacuum. He then explains that people exploding in space is a myth. The PirateGirl later uses this knowledge in her escape; when her own spacecraft turns up to rescue her, she jumps from one airlock to the other without a spacesuit. Creator/ArthurCClarke was inspired by the story to include this trope in several of his own stories, including ''2001''.

* ''TabletopGame/OnlyWar'' characters suffer explosive damage from depressurization if exposed to vacuum and eventually [[SpaceIsCold freeze]].

* Most of the ''VideoGame/SpaceQuest'' games allow killing the main character by exposure to vacuum. The effects are inconsistent depending on the humor value but never portray it realistically. ''VideoGame/{{Space Quest I|The Sarien Encounter}}'' and ''[[VideoGame/SpaceQuestIIIThePiratesOfPestulon III]]'' have Roger exploding like a balloon whenever this happens, along with the death screen message: "Sudden decompression sucks!" (it actually blows - it's the pressure inside pushing, rather than some suction from outside - that does it). ''VideoGame/{{Space Quest V|The Next Mutation}}'' and ''[[VideoGame/SpaceQuestIVRogerWilcoAndTheTimeRippers IV]]'' allow him to [[PressXToDie open the airlock doors]] on the ship/shuttle he's in, without a spacesuit. Both times, he's immediately hurled out by howling hurricane-force winds, despite the fact neither ship could possibly hold enough atmosphere for decompression to lift him off his feet and struggle for a few seconds before losing his grip.

* In ''WesternAnimation/DuckDodgers 64'', any level where Dodgers would might drift into space has him flying around for a few moments before immediately imploding.

* ''VideoGame/CrystalCaves'' is set deep down in mines on an apparently airless planet. The only reason you're able to breathe is thanks to Air Generators scattered throughout the levels. If you carelessly shoot one of them... ''You've blown up an air generator! The vacuum rushes in'' and your body inflates like a balloon, then pops as your helmet sails away.

* Ironically averted in ''VideoGame/DeadSpace2''. A Hackers RIG, in place of a proper helmet and armor, outfits you with a gas mask. And a thick jacket. This may be a coincidence as the designers don't seem to mind unlikely feats of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yug-mNYCVLE&feature=BFp&list=WL28C8748A4A5C6DEB&index=2 Post]][[ArtisticLicenseBiology mortem]] antics, either.
** Also, this trope (or in this case, lack thereof) reaches a ridiculous level in the last level of the ''Extraction'' spinoff, where the main character, seeing as his hand is impaled to the spaceship's outer hull, ''cuts it off.By hacking away at it with a rock saw''. While it could be plausible that space suits were modular, and thus remained functional despite damage occurring to non-vital parts, it still doesn't even begin to explain how all of Nate's blood didn't get squeezed out like milk out of a carton the second he made the first cut.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'' [[spoiler: In the ending, you make a portal to the moon, and you go flying out, hanging on to the badguy, who's also barely hanging on. You're exposed to the dead of space for almost exactly 15 seconds before being rescued, after which you pass out for an unspecified period of time before waking up.]]
** [[spoiler: The portal shot into the moon actually ''causes'' the explosive decompression of the room on earth. Luckily for Chell, air is also evacuated, so there's a bit of atmosphere to breathe as she's flailing around before the capture.]]
* Referenced in ''VideoGame/SonicColors'', in one of Eggman's hilarious PA announcements:
-->'''Dr. Eggman ''': If you experience explosive decompression, please try to avoid staining the seat cushions. Those things are expensive!
* Inverted in ''VideoGame/FTLFasterThanLight''. Being exposed to space doesn't even hurt crew members unless there's not enough oxygen, and they don't die in any sort of bodily explosion.
* A recurring plot point in ''VisualNovel/{{Ever 17}}''. There is an underwater amusement park that requires its guests to follow a decompression procedure before going to the park. [[spoiler: Later, a character deliberately ignored the procedure in an attempt to save someone and some managed to survive.]]
* ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' features [[spoiler: Shepard thrown from his/her exploding ship into the vastness of space. Initially, s/he suffers no ill effects... but then his/her sealed spacesuit begins to leak. Sure enough, s/he's out in seconds and descends into a decaying orbit. S/he gets better.]]
* In ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'', when the Vault Hunters first arrive on Elpis and meet Janey Springs, she informs them that as soon as they leave the vacuum-sealed moonshot cannon shell they arrived in the oxygen will vent and their eyes will pop like grapes. Fortunately, they don't have to worry about this in-game, though everyone except Claptrap still has to worry about keeping their oxygen supply up while in a vacuum.

* In ''VideoGame/MegaManZX'', a minor enemy called the Galleon Diver is a robot that rides an aquatic cycle that's connected to a pipe that delivers compressed air, which is what allows it to dive great lengths underwater. According to its Secret Disk entry, should that pipe be ruptured, however, the water pressure immediately crush the Galleon to death. [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration Indeed, if Vent/Aile cuts the pipe rather than attack the Galleon directly, it will instantly explode]].

* Naturally, ''ComicStrip/ThePerryBibleFellowship'' has its own sick [[http://pbfcomics.com/comics/space-helmet/ contribution]] to the topic.

* The climax of the ''Literature/FightingFantasy'' gamebook, ''Literature/{{Stormslayer}}'', which has the hero battling the weather-controlling wizard, Balthazar Sturm, on board his CoolAirship. At the conclusion of the duel, Sturm ends up getting sucked out through the ship's windows to his death.

** In "Treehouse of Horror X", Homer and Bart accidentally board a shuttle of obnoxious celebrities [[HurlItIntoTheSun headed for the sun]], then jump out the airlock to get away from Rosie O'Donnell. They blow up and pop like balloons.

* The crew of the spacecraft Soyuz 11 were killed when the ship's cabin depressurized during reentry. A valve was jolted open during the jettison of the service module, causing the cabin's atmosphere to be gradually blown into space.[[note]]The Russians didn't have their crews wear pressurized space suits at this time. They'd stopped a while back and only started it again after the incident.[[/note]] Their fates were not known until the craft landed; [[ReentryScare the ground crew lost contact before the fatal incident, which happens normally]]. CPR was attempted by support crews on the dead cosmonauts to no avail. As noted above, the three cosmonauts--Georgi Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev--are the only deaths to occur during spaceflight that were a direct result of decompression; technically, they're the only three humans ever to die ''in'' space.[[note]]Both the ''Challenger'' and ''Columbia'' disasters occurred ''considerably below'' the Kármán line, the officially-defined limit of where the lower atmosphere ends and "outer space" begins. Soyuz 1 was a crash landing at the end of a mission, and Apollo 204/Apollo 1 wasn't even a spaceflight accident. As of 2019, no other human has died for any reason during a spaceflight.[[/note]] With relation to this trope, footage of the aftermath shows their bodies to be relatively intact after roughly half an hour exposed to a vacuum.

* ''Film/Leprechaun4InSpace'': This is how the leprechaun is defeated.

* An underwater example can be found in ''[[VideoGame/EccoTheDolphin Ecco II: Tides Of Time]]'', where Vortex drones explode if they get too close to the surface. Neither Ecco nor any other creature has a similar risk of decompression.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/TheForceUnleashed'': When the Emperor orders Vader to kill you, he crashes you through a window to silently drift into space, but you get rescued shortly after and survive just fine.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'' episode "Wishbones", Skarr makes a wish for the world to witness his might that has an enormous statue of him rising from the ground. Skarr proceeds to gloat to everyone seeing it, failing to notice the rising statue is exiting the planet's atmosphere, he then loses oxygen and then promptly explodes.

The term "Explosive Decompression" is legitimate, but it refers to the speed at which the decompression occurs, not the result or cause. There has only been [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_11 one recorded incident of explosive decompression aboard spacecraft]] that killed the crew, and numerous cases of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Airliner_accidents_and_incidents_involving_in-flight_depressurization 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 the 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.

Well, that's the movie version. The reality is quite different. 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[[note]]the medical term for oxygen deficiency[[/note]], a couple of minutes at best until you die from the same, and all sorts of nasty decompression injuries in between. (Exposed areas swelling up, body fluids boiling off your surfaces) 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. A classic piece of HollywoodScience; in fact, this belief is so widespread that audiences are more outraged when it ''doesn't'' happen (see TheCoconutEffect and RealityIsUnrealistic).

This one can happen in real life if you get a ''really'' high-pressure gradient - from far 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 the "Byford Dolphin" - but beware of NauseaFuel. However since most space-missions only use 1 atm (really, even less), this is a bit overstated.

* A slight variation of this is [[http://nazr.in/13To decompression sickness]] (or the "bends"), which tends to (mostly) happen in divers. You won't explode but, like the airplanes examples above, this can lead to your lungs rupturing. More often than not, the [=AGE=] type happens when a diver ascends to the surface too quickly or if the diver had lung conditions prior. To prevent this, some people (particularly those in the Navy) undergo some form or pressure conditioning

* Brock Sampson gets briefly exposed to the vacuum of space in ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'', but survives due to his MadeOfIron nature.

* ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'': In "TheLastOne", the Moonights kill Oog this way, throwing a bone outside the moon's protective dome so he will chase after it. He goes outside to grab it and explodes.

* The crew of the spacecraft Soyuz 11 were killed when the ship's cabin depressurized during reentry. A valve was jolted open during the jettison of the service module, causing the cabin's atmosphere to be gradually blown into space.[[note]]The Russians didn't have their crews wear pressurized space suits at this time. They'd stopped a while back and only started it again after the incident.[[/note]] Their fates were not known until the craft landed; [[ReentryScare the ground crew lost contact before the fatal incident, which happens normally]]. CPR was attempted by support crews on the dead cosmonauts to no avail. As noted above, the three cosmonauts--Georgi Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev--are the only deaths to occur during spaceflight that were a direct result of decompression; technically, they're the only three humans ever to die ''in'' space.[[note]]Both the ''Challenger'' and ''Columbia'' disasters occurred ''considerably below'' the Kármán line, the officially-defined limit of where the lower atmosphere ends and "outer space" begins. Soyuz 1 was a crash landing at the end of a mission, and Apollo 204/Apollo 1 wasn't even a spaceflight accident. As of 2018, no other human has died for any reason during a spaceflight.[[/note]] With relation to this trope, footage of the aftermath shows their bodies to be relatively intact after roughly half an hour exposed to a vacuum.

* [[http://bodiesinspace.ghoste.net/ Bodies In Space]] is art by Nathan Hoste laying out the various things you die of if you're ThrownOutAnAirlock. It makes clear that this trope is not one of them unless you hold your breath (and even then it involves internal rupture).

* ''Series/WarOfTheWorlds'': "Goliath is My Name". An alien is sealed in a biohazard clean room when our heroes start its decontamination procedure. When the indicator shows that the room has become a total vacuum, the alien promptly swells up and explodes. Admittedly, it's not unheard of for aliens to explode from dying in other sorts of ways as their decomposition causes a massive, rapid exothermal reaction.

->''"Sudden decompression sucks!"''

Well, that's the movie version. The reality is quite different. 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, a couple of minutes at best until you die from the same, and all sorts of nasty decompression injuries in between. (Exposed areas swelling up, body fluids boiling off your surfaces) 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. A classic piece of HollywoodScience; in fact, this belief is so widespread that audiences are more outraged when it ''doesn't'' happen (see TheCoconutEffect and RealityIsUnrealistic).

** Downplayed in the 1972 low-budget sci-fi film ''Film/DoomsdayMachine''. During an attempted rape the airlock is unlocked by accident [[NoOshaCompliance due to an easily pressed button]] and rapist and victim are killed. They float around as their [[EyeScream eyes start bleeding]] but their heads don't explode.
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** In the 1972 low-budget sci-fi film ''Doomsday Machine'', two crew members are killed this way by unlocking the airlock by accident during an attempted rape. Oddly enough, they float around as their eyes start bleeding but their heads don't explode.