Ship Sim...

The maneuvering thrusters on the space shuttle use hypergolic propellants (fuel and oxidizer which ignite on contact with one another without requiring any type of "spark"). The fuel is monomethyl hydrazine, and the oxidizer is nitrogen tetroxide.
 
Originally posted by Col.Dom
Here's a question: If a man were to be thrown into the vacuum of space, how long would it take for him to explode? I'm thinking it would be instantaneous- since the oxygen in your lungs and other internal gases would expand rapidly- and not "conveniently slow" like in most movies. Does anyone know?
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Explode? More like never.

Practically all of the human body is liquid and most of the rest is solid tissue, neither of which are able to expand or contract due to pressure. About the only air in the body (i.e. in the lungs) would be quickly sucked out through the nose and mouth. Your eyes would not bug out, nor would your tongue swell appreciably as seen in Total Recall. You would get some bleeding - surface capillaries in the nose and ears are very fragile and would bleed out due to your own blood pressure.
 
The way I understand vacuum exposure is that all of your fluids do boil off and you wind up mummified.
 
Yeah - if you were exposed to the vacuum of space, the first this that happens is that the surface fluids boil off. Mucous membranes and surface blood vessels "explode", if you will because of the boiling, but it really affects the surface, and your skin doesn't explode since not enough liquid can boil away quickly enough.

So you get really bloodshot and frozen (boiling is a cooling effect).
 
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