Can you survive in an airplane in space?

[Brent]

Theoretically speaking of course, if you could magically transport a regular commercial passenger airliner into space, could you survive inside?

I understand it is pressurized, but it is completely air tight?

Oxygen would be a problem, but lets say you had oxygen tanks on board providing it, could you survive inside?

 

[Lindley]

I wouldn't count on it. Those things aren't designed for that level of pressure differential.

 

[Brent]

I was wondering about that yesterday as I was in a plane for 7 hours from California back home, and we were flying at a very high altitude, the kind where you can start to see the sky turn a very very dark blue as you look up, and I was thinking what if the plane were up in space, how long would I live and what would it be that killed me

 

[john titor]

hey I was thinking similar things a few months back. Say your house lifts off slowly at a constant rate into space. In the house you have certain materials which you can stick to the doors, windows and other openings to seal in the oxygen etc, as you wait for a space shuttle to dock with the house and for the astronauts to come in a rescue you. While lifting off you would be given constant advice from NASA about how to survive for as long as possible. But I was wondering what kind of advice they would give.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

If the plane can't handle the pressure differential, it would explode since the cabin would be under much higher pressure than the outside environment. You would then asphyxiate, burn up in the atmosphere, or fall to your death, depending on how high up you are.

 

[Brent]

If the plane can't handle the pressure differential, it would explode since the cabin would be under much higher pressure than the outside environment. You would then asphyxiate, burn up in the atmosphere, or fall to your death, depending on how high up you are.

What if you lowered the pressure in the cabin?

 

[Lindley]

I was wondering about that yesterday as I was in a plane for 7 hours from California back home, and we were flying at a very high altitude, the kind where you can start to see the sky turn a very very dark blue as you look up

Commercial airliners never go above a pressure altitude of 60,000 feet over the continental US, what they call "Flight Level 600." Above that, Class A airspace ends and you're back in Class E. Do you remember what altitude it was? Or even the plane type. I could look up the service ceiling.

On a particularly warm day, you might gain an additional few thousand feet in density altitude though.

The US Air Force defines an astronaut as anyone exceeding an altitude of 50 miles (264000 feet). And the FAI's definition is even higher. So you had a ways yet to go.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

If the plane can't handle the pressure differential, it would explode since the cabin would be under much higher pressure than the outside environment. You would then asphyxiate, burn up in the atmosphere, or fall to your death, depending on how high up you are.

What if you lowered the pressure in the cabin?

Well, I hope you have oxygen masks, then, unless you want to die of hypoxia.

However, a plane only really works where there's air. You need air for lift to work. Without air, the plane can't stay aloft.

Assuming you could magically get a plane up into space without it suddenly falling, and assuming you have oxygen supplies on board so you can lower the cabin pressure without killing the passengers... yeah, I guess the plane could "survive," and so could the passengers, at least until the oxygen runs out or the interior of the plane overheats.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

Commercial airliners are built to provide an analog of the atmospheric pressure at 10,000 feet inside the cabin, that's roughly 10 PSI. Their normal operating environment is 25,000 feet or a bit higher. The atmospheric pressure at that altitude is about about 7 PSI, so the plane is about 3 PSI overpressurized by design.

Taking the plane past that pressure differential risks compromising the integrity of the cabin.

That being said, the pure oxygen environment of the Block I Apollo capsules and space suits is around 5 psi. That's the smallest amount of gas you can have and give the human body the required partial pressure of O2 to survive.


So, even if you could swap the air in the cabin for pure O2 to allow humans a breathable gax mix at the lowest possible pressure, the plane wouldn't take it.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Brent,

No you couldn't. Even if the airplane was somehow moving at orbital velocity and was not in danger of burning up you could not survive.

For two reasons...

First of all, I'm assuming the plane suddenly appeared in outer space as if it was beamed there. If the pressure differential between cabin pressure and atmospheric were too far apart the airplane would explode. Assuming that didn't kill you the virtually non-existant pressure of space and the extreme cold would do the job.

Secondly: The aircraft, could not utilize it's engines, as jet-engines require air to operate. If the engines aren't online, the cabin pressurization system is not working either. The jet engines are required to pressurize the cabin. No pressure, you die.


Alpha_Geek,

Generally a cabin pressure of 8,000 feet equivalent is produced...

 

[john titor]

Brent,

No you couldn't. Even if the airplane was somehow moving at orbital velocity and was not in danger of burning up you could not survive.

For two reasons...

First of all, I'm assuming the plane suddenly appeared in outer space as if it was beamed there. If the pressure differential between cabin pressure and atmospheric were too far apart the airplane would explode. Assuming that didn't kill you the virtually non-existant pressure of space and the extreme cold would do the job.

Secondly: The aircraft, could not utilize it's engines, as jet-engines require air to operate. If the engines aren't online, the cabin pressurization system is not working either. The jet engines are required to pressurize the cabin. No pressure, you die.


Alpha_Geek,

Generally a cabin pressure of 8,000 feet equivalent is produced...

Just to be pedantic, the cold wouldn't kill you immediately as there is very little in space to transfer heat to. Therefore you wouldn't see the frosting that occurs to astronauts as they are portrayed in films when they go outside without suits.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

John Titor,

Well your body would freeze, your blood would boil and freeze at the same time.

 

[Squiggy]

If the plane can't handle the pressure differential, it would explode since the cabin would be under much higher pressure than the outside environment. You would then asphyxiate, burn up in the atmosphere, or fall to your death, depending on how high up you are.

What if you lowered the pressure in the cabin?

Well, I hope you have oxygen masks, then, unless you want to die of hypoxia.

In short. No. It wouldn't work. And even if you could survive in the plane you're screwed because you're not getting back down and eventually that oxygen system will run out before any rescue mission could be enacted, which would be futile because there'd be no way to transfer any magical survivors from the aircraft to whatever fantastic spacecraft that would retrieve 100 or more people and return them to earth inside of a few hours.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

Squiggy brings up another point. The emergency oxygen system that our demonstrator has valiantly displayed in a previous post, is only designed to supply sufficient O2 for the pilot to get the plane down below 10,000 feet and is not designed for sustained use.

Don't even get me started on CO2 scrubbing. Come to think of it, the plane has to have an open system of some kind or that would be a problem on normal flights. If it's an open system there goes our atmosphere if you're in a vacuum, Scoob!

Roiks!

 

[Squiggy]

True. Those masks aren't tight at all (the pilot's are however). So in a near vacuum any oxygen flowing out of the mask would be blown right out before it gets inside the lungs.

 

[Gaseous Anomaly]

Am I the only one that remembers from the movie Apollo 13 they said the skin of the LM was about as thick as aluminum foil? I’m not saying you could survive, I just remember that line. Yes, I know it was just a movie.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

The LM was designed for space operations, though.

 

[T'Girl]

Cabin stays pressurized two ways, small amount of high pressure air is blead off the jet engines, and also on the belly of the airplane there what's called the "ram air" which are air scoops that takes the 600 mile per hour air and allow a small amount of it into the cabin.

Just behind the ram air (on a 747) is one of your problems, it the air conditioning - hot air exhausts. The 747 has four, each are three feet square. next time your at an airport on a rainy day look under a 747 you'll see a big dry spot about twenty feet across, that's them.

Commercial airplanes have "pressure relief panels", which are designed to blow open if the pressure in and out is too different. Keeps the windows from doing it first.

The emergency oxygen comes from canisters full of magic crystals, inject a small amount of water and they do two things, produce an incredible level of heat, and make oxygen. They've been known to start onboard fires too.

Because they spend a lot of time at high altitudes, pilots and stews have very high cancer rates, you'll be higher still.

Might want to bring sunscreen too. Ultraviolet A, B and C, remember the windows ?

And thank you for flying terror air.

.

 

[Jadzia]

In terms of air pressure, I think at 50,000ft it is 10% of sea level air pressure, which is really quite low. The vacuum of space isn't going to cause much more of a pressure differential -- you're 90% of the way there already at 50,000ft. I doubt these things are manufactured to such fine tolerances that it couldn't handle 10% lower. After all, the motion of the plane through the air creates it's own dynamic pressure drop. I'd expect the air frame could survive in space without bursting open, and with people sitting happily inside. Although that's ignoring air replenishment, the lack of which would make the trip feel uncomfortable rather quickly.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

OK, so 8000 feet for cabin pressure, (close to 11 PSI) and the service ceiling is closer to 50k (Boeing 757 is 45000, higher than I estimated), (2.15 PSI), lowering the cabin pressure to the equivalent of 10,000 feet still puts the cabin at a greater overpressure than the design spec.

It does allow for a pure O2 environment of sufficient pressure for human survival, but as stated earlier, the craft has no way to produce such.

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/air-altitude-pressure-d_462.html