ORIGINAL: Obsolete
I only saw one movie in my whole life were space was actually displayed at what it is, a vacuum. Except for Space Odyssey 2001 every writer and every director failed to deal with the fact that sound requires matter and that's exactly what space is not about.
I vivid remember the scene where the one astronaut outside the ship had to blow the explosive bolts to open the airlock hatch. The explosion was shown physically correct without sound effects and actually the lack of sound made the scene even more dramatic. Stanley Kubrick is clearly a grand master in his area, but maybe there is a grand master game designer out there too?
Well if we are going to use a movie to start to substantiate claims, etc. I think I should remind you that this scene in particular was also critiqued as been quite poor and hence, sci/fi because any astronaut who de-compresses in space would have been automatically plastered all over the place from his own body-pressure in the vaccume within the first fraction of a second... and that's ignoring every other problem in the vaccume of space as well...
Actually this is a common misconception (which we obviously have to thank all this bad science fiction movies that struggle with reality) to think that low or even zero pressure would rip apart a human body. Actually vacuum itself is surprisingly quite survivable for a short amount of time minus suffocation.
I assume what you mean with body-pressure is blood pressure caused by the heart pumping blood through the veins. But the arteries and veins are quite resilient and either would you freeze to dead. In fact vacuum is very efficient in preserving heat as one may guess that use vacuum coolers.
Most heat is exchanged via convection but that requires matter and is the reason why you may survive a long time in 5 degree could air, but only a couple of minutes in cold water. In space most heat would be lost via heat radiation and this would take so long you die before of suffocation.
The main danger in vacuum is the quickly expanding gas in your lungs. The very same danger that deep diver have to face. If they come up too fast the expanding air would rapture all their tiny pulmonary vessels. Which is why the first thing they teach you in a diving course is to exhale when ascending. Same rules applies if faced with any kind of decompress including exposed to space.
Well watching science fiction movies is not really for fun as I'm constant confronted with physical bullshit (sorry the language), I guess a medical doctor don't enjoy watching Grey's Anatomy either
(Not the book Gray's but the tv-show of course).
But who I am to tell you, instead listen to this NASA scientist.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com/vacuum.html
A frequently asked question is: how realistic is the scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey where astronaut Bowman makes a space-walk without a helmet? How long could a human survive if exposed to vacuum? Would you explode? Would you survive? How long would you remain conscious?
The quick answers to these questions are: Clarke got it about right in 2001. You would survive about a ninety seconds, you wouldn't explode, you would remain conscious for about ten seconds.
