The Complete Book of Spaceflight: From Apollo 1 to Zero Gravity

402 Space Studies Board
space station A model of an
inflatable space station concept
with a solar power system collector
at Langley Research Center
in 1961. NASA
pressures would all hinder this ambition, but by 1997 the
orbital assembly of the International Space Station had
begun. 40
Space Studies Board
A committee, previously known as the Space Science
Board, that was formed by the National Academy of Sciences
in 1958, shortly after the launch of the first Earth
satellites, to help establish U.S. goals in space science. It
continues to provide external and independent scientific
and programmatic guidance to NASA and other government
agencies in the basic subdisciplines of space
research.
Space Studies Institute (SSI)
A nonprofit research group founded by Gerard K.
O’Neill, among the interests of which have been massdrivers,
lunar mining processes and simulants, composites
from lunar materials, and solar power satellites. Its
presidency was taken over by Freeman Dyson after
O’Neill’s death in 1992. SSI publishes a bimonthly
newsletter, SSI Update, describing work-in-progress, and
runs the biennial Princeton Conference on Space Manufacturing,
in Princeton, New Jersey.
space survival
The question is often asked: For how long could an
unprotected human survive in the vacuum of space? Fol-
lowing a sudden decompression to a vacuum, you could
expect to remain conscious for, at most, 10 to 15 seconds.
Quickly thereafter paralysis would set in, accompanied
by the rapid formation of water vapor in the soft tissues,
which would bloat your body to roughly twice its normal
size (but not cause it to explode). Holding your breath in
anticipation of decompression would be a bad move,
since it would result in your lungs bursting almost
instantly. Although your blood would not boil, your circulation
would stop within a minute as the pressure in
the venous system rose (again, due to the expansion of
water vapor) until it surpassed that of the arterial system.
Other health hazards of taking a spacewalk without a
spacesuit, such as temperature extremes and exposure to
intense ultraviolet, would not inconvenience you, as you
would already be dead. Experiments to determine the
biological effect of space exposure have, unfortunately,
been carried out on animals, including chimpanzees.
Data concerning the specific effect on humans have
come from a number of accidents. One of these occurred
at the Manned Spacecraft Center (now the Johnson
Space Center) when a test subject was exposed to a nearvacuum
after his spacesuit sprang a leak in a vacuum
chamber. He remained conscious for about 14 seconds,
and later, following repressurization after being in the
near-vacuum for about 30 seconds, he reported that his
last memory was of the water on his tongue starting to
boil. Many deaths have followed rapid decompression,