Nude Space Walk

in space. That means uh, you know, the experiments, the the the the proclivity for for French ladies of ill repute, mac and cheese, mac and cheese. Oh sorry, that was Thomas Jefferson. Yeah, and kind of like mac and cheese. Okay, I'm seeing this. I'm seeing him holding onto a kite yep, maybe maybe maybe not, And I'm seeing him with his space suit on over his old timey clothes, but then walking out onto the the exterior area of the ship for his his air bath. I knew, I knew you

were going to take us there, Robert lamp. When you say air bath, you mean a jaunt in the nude yes, because because ben Ben Franklin, of course, he he was a big fan of of sleeping half the night through than getting up and uh spending a little time just setting around in the buff in the open air, reading a little bit, and then getting tired of getting going back to bed. And there there's there's a lot of there are a lot of studies that show that this

is probably actually a very reasonable way to sleep. The nude reading is you know, left to the individuals. I was going to say that the getting up in the middle of the night and sort of maximizing sleep patterns, not necessarily taking an air bath, as he called it, nude. Now, of course, there's no air outside of his spaceship. Um So if Benjamin Franklin did venture out of the airlock

in the buff, what would happen? You know? Would would eyeballs would bulge, he would explode into a million meat pieces, yes, and froze, he would freeze and shatter. That's the thing we've we've seen so many different versions of what this might consist of in science fiction and if you look look at the various things that have been written about

it too, from even from a scientific perspective. Um, it can get a little confusing at times because our ideas are sort of shifted over time and uh and and some some things that we thought would happen haven't really happened. And thankfully it's not something we have a tremendous amount of data on, because we we aren't just throwing naked astronauts out the airlock in space. We're not doing a whole bunch of horrific decompression experiments just to see what

would happen in these cases. Instead, we're taking all due precautions with our our astronauts and ensuring that these highly valuable individuals can carry on their daily task in safety. Yeah. And so we we thought we would take this uh sci fi trope that's death by vacuum and really examine it and see what would happen and the various ways that that we do try to protect our astronauts. Yeah. So a good starting place for this system to mention just a few of them, the more notable examples that

will refer back to as we progress. First of all, there is two thousand and one of Space Odyssey, which we often mentioned and everyone pretty much often mentions is one of the best sci fi films of all time,

and really there's nothing like it. I recently watched it again and it's just it's stunning and uh and long and a little confusing, but I mean, all these things disorienting, and it just makes you think it's it's psychedelic, it's it's as at times it's it's it's hard science fiction in a way that it feels so real, that feels more real than it feels like a more real version of the future, a more genuine version of the future

than we actually have grown into. And then and then there's other stuff in it that is just completely out there, that's just you know, the mind meeting the unknown. But there is one scene in which, after not Dave Bowman, Uh, Dave, what are you doing? Dave? That Dave, you can do the Dave voice, do it, Dave, what are you doing? Dave? Are you taking off your clothes and going for spacewalk? Well he doesn't do it in the nude, but he's space walks for about fifteen seconds with no helmet, and uh,

it doesn't appear to cause him any pain. Uh. He re enters the Discovery through an open hatch and just carries on. And the modern viewers that he just comes up like a complete badass because he's just he's unfazed by it. He's just like, all right, it just drifted through the void, no helmet on. Now I'm good to go. I'm gonna go shut down this computer. So there's that version. Then there's there's Mission to Mars, in which Tim Robbins takes his helmet off and his face like instantly freezes

and distorts and he's dead just in a second. Um, which is I think a typical response to watching that movie and its entirety as well. Um, there's Outland, which is really a very enjoyable film. I don't know if you've seen this. When this one is a shot, it's it's great because you have Sean Connery as the good guy and I think believe Peter Boyle plays the villain. And it's like a mining colony in space. It's basically

a space Western. I mean, it is a straight up space Western, and it's a hell of a lot of fun. I have secretly hope that Nicholas winding Refin will we'll do a remakeup it. It will probably never happen, but I think it would be great for it. But there's are a whole bunch of scenes where uh, guys in space suits are shot. It ruptures their suit and then their heads swell up like a balloon and then pop and it's you know, and to to the modern viewer, it's it's it's a lot of fun, but as we'll discuss,

it's complete hooey as far as what would actually happen. Um. There's the movie Event Horizon, which, uh, it's a supernatural space film that teenage Robert Lamb loved, could not get enough of. Modern Robert Lamb that does not really want to see it again. But in this film, a character passes through the space without a suit briefly and he survives, but it's a very traumatic experience and I believe he

suffered some sort of blindness from it. Um and they are also I believe they prep him by getting him to it to push all the air out of his lungs before he goes. Now. In Sunshine, communications Officer Harvey tries to jump from one spaceship to another, and he tries to do it without a suit and doesn't quite make it, and within a minute or so his his arm is really so brittle that it breaks off like an icicle. Yeah, which makes for a good cinem I mean,

you know, Danny Boyle is a great filmmaker. So Sunshine is a beautiful film to watch, but not not all the science. It's gonna really line up. But some of the things that you're hearing already swelling, freezing, Uh what else is there any other swelling, freezing, exploding? Um? I don't know if any of these another ones we looked at really went into burning, but that is a concern. Would be easy to say, oh, you would just catch fire, or one you wouldn't catch fire, but I don't know,

you would just turn into beef jerky. I guess could be another possible example, and I'm sure somebody has used that somewhere in science fiction, right, although we don't get that's not an angle that comes up much, but it is a real possibility, So I could see it being a possible distortion of what could happen. Is right, And

these distortions really do have some basis to them. It does not mean that if you were to take off your space suit that you would explode, but it does mean that there's a measure of swelling going on in the body. And we'll get more into that. But I think that's what's so intriguing about this idea, that's a death, death by vacuum. Yes, so at this point we should we should take a step back and let's say, let's look at space itself. Let's look at the void and

discuss exactly what this environment is. And then we'll say, well, we'll answer the question what would this do to an individual without a space suit, an individual without a helmet, or indeed a naked Benjamin Franklin just floating about without restraint, with with less restraint than usual. Well, um, one of the things I wanted to mention all the it has really no impact on whether or not someone would explode in space without a space suit. Is sound? Okay, there

is no sound in space, right. Sound travels by making molecules vibrate, So in order for sound travel, there has to be something with molecules fort to travel through. On Earth, sound travels to your ears by vibrating air molecules. In deep space, the large empty areas between stars and plants, there are no molecules to vibrate. There is no sound, making it that much more creepy for our sci fi body explosion to happen. Yeah, in space, no one can

hear you scream. Right, that's the that's the Aliens tagline, right, that's it, that's his tagline. So yeah, So in space we have the void, we have a vacuum. So first of all, obviously there's no oxygen. That's just the no brainer. But of course there's furthermore, there's no atmosphere. There's no atmospheric pressure hugging you in. We've discussed in the podcast we just recorded about emotions in space that of course

here on Earth there is air pressure. There's all this heavy air doesn't seem like it has any eight or pressure to it, but it's constantly pressing in on us. It's hugging us. It's like a corset that we have worn so long we no longer realize we're wearing it. But take that corset off and stuff is just gonna float free. That's right, because there is an absence of

matter in space. Also, the temperature it's cold, Yeah, it's uh, certainly, space itself doesn't really have a temperature because it's just the void. So I mean, here's the thing. When it comes to heat transfer, they're basically three ways that it takes place, there's radiation, there's convection, and there's conduction. Radiation is the only method of heat transfer for objects in

a vacuum. So you end up in the situation where, even though the void around you is not going to be, you know, pressing up against you with some temperature, you're exposed to some really severe uh examples of temperature variation uh in terms of really cold stuff and then also really hot uh. The heat coming from the radiation. For instance, uh NASA's bulky white space shoot suits that they wear in the spacewalks. So let's say you're out there, you're working.

Let's say you've got your back turned to cold, dead space, and then your your front is turned towards the sun. Well, they have found that there can be upwards of a two hundred and seventy five degree farenheight difference from one side to the other, just based on where you're you're facing just that kind of an extreme. So the white is reflective and you're not absorbing that heat. Right. It's another One of the other things that springs to mind too,

is a lunar dust. Back when we were sending people to the Moon, you had to be concerned with the fact that are you have this this white uh space, and it's reflecting all of this solar radiation. So it's uh, you know, it's keeping you from absorbing all of this heat. Uh you're reflecting it, but get coated in some dark moon dust and suddenly you'll start absorbing it and it could bake you alive. Not a good way to go. Not a good way to go. Uh. And that's not

really a plot line you see much and stuff by movies. No, but it could be used as a weapon. I mean, that's it's it's it's an underutilized idea there. You know. It's like all you need is a black paint gun. It goes without saying that in a vacuum, most liquids have a such a low boiling point that they vaporize almost instantly. But that is a reminder that we just

don't have moisture floating around in space. In fact, in the past, when astronauts have urinated, the results were expelled into space where it boiled violently, and then the vapor then passed immediately into a solid state. It's a process known as d sublimation, and you end up with a cloud of really fine crystals of frozen urine, which is sort of a beautiful thing. Yeah, yeah, I've I've heard

it described as being fairly beautiful. In fact, I think that some astronauts had mistaken those crystals for distant stars.

There's some accounts of that name them after themselves. Yeah, all right, But you've touched on something with the with the with the liquids boiling, because because you often hear the idea too that oh, if you're exposed to the void, your blood would boil and you would just it would just be this awful mess like and I mean just that idea of boiling blood is just hellish and awful, and it you can see where people would really get

attached to the notion. So you have these visions, you know, if the blood boiling in the skin and like you know, blood vapor coming out of people or making you inflate and explode, and of course that's that's not going to happen um because of the containing effect of the skin in the circulatory system. So you swell a bit naked,

Benjamin Franklin would kind of bloat a little bit. But the but the body, yeah, more, but the body itself is its own kind of precious suit for this kind of thing, And and it keeps dissolved tissues in a liquid stage, so only body flu is directly exposed to the vacuum would actually boil away. And uh, marriage says has happened to a NASA test subject a leaky space

suit in an altitude chamber. The last thing he recalled before of losing consciousness with the sensation of his saliva bubbling on its tongue, which is kind of awful and cool at the same time. Um, let's talk about space suits real quick, just because I want to talk about how they do actually protect astronauts of space. They have pressurized atmosphere, so the space suit provides air pressure to keep the fluids in your body in a liquid state.

Oxygen space suits must apply pure oxygen because of a low pressure, and then of course you've got regulated temperature. Now let's take a quick break, and when we get back we can talk about what happens when you strip off a space suit. All right, we're back. So we've been talking about some of the science fiction ideas about what happens when you take your space suit off in

the void. We've mentioned some of the attributes of the void there's no air, there's no pressure, that the solar adiation can just quickly heat things up a whole lot to two pretty uh hellish temperatures. And then likewise that there's the cold, chilling void to concern yourself with as well. So we've been taught tackling the question what what would actually happen? What actually does happen when the body's exposed

to this kind of environment. Well, you rip off your space suit and you get about fifteen seconds some saying between nine and leven depending uh, and that is about roughly how much time it takes for deoxygenated blood to circulate from your lungs to your brain. So when I say you get fifteen seconds, fifteen seconds of consciousness left. Yeah, and this is going to be the big kicker, you know,

for for what's happening out there. This is ultimately going to be the factor for a niked Benjamin Franklin on the exterior, right. I mean it's kind of awful because it could be fifteen seconds where you witness your demise, or it could be fifteen seconds. Uh And if someone can act quickly, well, then you could be resuscitated. It is possible. Um, But The deal is is that the sucking the air from your lungs is part of why shoot.

But the deal is is that the sucking the air from your lungs is is really part and parcel of why your demise would come on. See, when you're placed in a vacuum, the gas exchange process works and reverse your lyngs actually pull oxygen out of the body and dump it back into the lungs where it's exhaled, which only serves to hasten the onset of hypoxia. Yeah. Yeah, the the air rushes out explosively even and can really damage the lungs in the throat. Um. And it's all

because of this tremendous pressure differential inside versus the outside. Yeah. And as you had mentioned, Um, the the spit any sort of liquid on your tongue and sweat on your body would boil away. Um. This has been described as a fizzy feeling like drinking soda and water. Vapor will form rapidly in the soft tissues and somewhat less rapidly in the venous blood, causing swelling. So there's this idea

of you know, our sci fi idea of exp loading. Yeah, and also it comes back to that, I believe it is the event horizon um scene where they said, make sure you get all the air out of your lungs because you're about to be exposed to the void. Yeah, apparently holding your breath makes it worse. Yes, do not hold your breath when exposed to a vacuum. Um. The number of other factors that they can come into play. I mean, this can essentially give you the bends. They

can force the air bubbles into your blood vessels. Uh. There a whole lot of nasty things that can happen to the human body without even getting into the realm of exploding heads. You know, just the moisture in your nose, eyes, and mouth that evaporates, causing localized frost bite. As you had mentioned before, exposed skin begins to burn, um, so you get an extreme uh sunburn, your dermal tissues begin to swell. And when it comes to the idea of

freezing or turning into beef jerokee. Well, first of all, it's it's worth noting that that you would have to worry about getting a pretty bad sunburn if you were out there without a suit. But in terms of like freezing solid and chattering like in sunshine or going all of you know, frozen face like Tim Robbins uh in Mission to Mars. Uh. Here's a quick quote from a fill over at bad Astronomer, and he says, the human body holds a lot of heat, and it would take

a long time to freeze. Have you ever found yourself literally freezing solid when you go outside on a winter's day? No, of course not yet. Losing heat by transferring it to cold air is far faster than doing so by simply radiating it away as you would in space. If it takes a long time in frigid air, it would take even longer in frigid space. So there you have it.

As far as the idea of shattering astronauts, uh, it would take you would have to find an astronaut e that been floating free for quite a bit before they're going to actually just you know, break into pieces. Right right, your body is gonna cool slowly, relatively coolly, uh or slowly,

I should say. And then the hypoxia that you experience really does have its own set of issues, including a loss of vision of course, wits at that point, followed by convulsions, um, lots of consciousness and uh, cyanosis when your skin turns blue. So at this point you're not dead really, Um, you're just kind of you're on your

way there. Your brain is still functional, in your heart is still going, and you can still be revived according to NASA, with surprisingly minimal permanent injury if if you are immediately returned to an atmosphere and this savior window is only ninety seconds long. Now, there was an accidental experiment with US, and NASA actually has us on the website in the section that fields all the various questions

they get. They say, at NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center, which is now renamed Jonathan Space Center, we had a test subject accidentally exposed to a near vacuum in an incident involving a leaking space suit in a vacuum chamber back in sixty five. He remained conscious for about fourteen seconds, and uh, they began to re pressurize the chamber within fifteen seconds and then he regaining consciousness. So he was fine.

But you know, all those things did not have in his blood to not boil his eyeballs, did not you know, explode out of his head. Yeah, based on everything that then we've been reading when you compare real life to fiction, when you compare science to science fiction, the two thousand and one example is pretty spot on, except he wouldn't be so spotless on the other side. It would he would look and feel like he'd kind of been beaten

up a lot more from that brief space walk. Um. Yeah, because in addition to that swelling, you'd have a lot of bruising as well. Yeah, so he'd be pretty battered. He wouldn't just you know, shake it off, no matter how you know, tough an astronaut he really is. Yeah, So I Ben Franklin would be uh, he'd be okay. That ninety two window a little worse for wear, but he would be okay. Now I can't help but think back to some stuff we talked about in our episode

the Werewolf Principle, where we talked about cyborgs in space. Uh, cyborgs in space, of course, was this paper by Manford E. Klins and Nathan S. Klein published in Astronautics in September of nineteen sixty and it was pretty pivotal, like they basically infinite the word cyborg um. And they were talking, I mean, their whole thesis here was let us consider changing the organism to meet the demands of a new environment, instead of bringing a portion of that organism's native environment

with them into hostile environments. In other words, the whole problem with with the humans exposing themselves to the void and suffering all this damage is because, surprise, surprise, we are not meant we are we we are not meant, we are not We have not evolved to live in that kind of an environment. Um, So to what extent could we change ourselves to better deal with an environment like that? Here's a quick quote from that paper, just

to refresh everybody. They said, give man in space, in addition to flying his vehicle, must continually be checking on things and making adjustments, merely in order to keep himself alive. He becomes a slave to the machine. The purpose of the cyborg, as well as his own homeostatic systems, is to provide an organizational system in which such robot like problems are taken care of automatically and unconsciously, leaving man free to explore, to create, to think, and to feel.

So among the various things that that the author suggested, uh they brought up enzymes enzyme tinkering to create anaerobic organisms. In other words, astronauts that don't require air or can live in different atmospheres lower body pressure to facilitate space walks. I don't know about naked spacewalks, but to to make it less of a you know, a differential um and and various other options as well. So it so it's not quite a magic ball that allows us to see

exactly what we might be doing in the future. But but I love that that even this, this older paper did force us to think about an age when we're changing ourselves to deal with space well. And um, you know, you have European Space Agency tests that are looking at something like an Arthur Pod like creature Tarte grade to try to find out why this particular creature can survive in the vacuum for up to ten days. You know, what what special about was going on in its physiology

and what might we borrow from it. Now, as you mentioned that that, um, that paper really was pressent in the in the sense that it was trying to figure out the various ways that we would try to adapt ourselves with the technology that we have. We know that Mars is on the books forties or at least that's the idea right now. That doesn't mean that we're going

to be taking naked spacewalks. But the longer we are in space, the more time that you know that, if you're run a three year mission, um, the more your chances of having these sort of issues come up with space suits depress rising, and so the more interesting this question becomes what happens when you expose yourself to the vacuum? And it's not just this you know, romantic side death drive of just floating off into space you know, forever more.

But it really is this fascinating question of how what actually happens to yourself and how how could you so you know, go beyond your human limits? H it Also, I can't help but think I guess that the fiction uh writer and sci fi fantomy can't help but imagine what if what have we we reached a point where exposure to the void was like a rite of passage, you know, like um like I think that I think the various things here on Earth that like the interstellar

right of passage? Yeah, like well, like for instance, I think to the George R. Martin books and there's like a there are a group of people there that live in the Iron Islands, and they're all sort of like vikings, but but they have this right of passage that they all go through where they're all essentially drowned and resuscitated, and it's about forging the relationship with the water and uh and uh and there were their their religion and the way they view the water and their eventual return

to the ocean in the form of drowning or death. So I can't help but imagine something similar with with with ast Not's in the future, Like what have would have to become a man or to become a um, you know, a full pledged adult, uh, space faring human, you had to do those nine seconds in the void, you know, and and be changed by it. I'm just imagining this uh future, Tony Robbins, that's right, what I guess thinking about the firewalking. Yeah, a very extreme, very

dangerous form of firewalking. We've terraformed several planets. You've got this interstellar right of passage. If you want to show your how strong you are as a human, then you will expose yourself to the void. Yeah, surely somebody has done that before. If they haven't, I thought of it first. So cut me in on the deal. That's right, all right, Well, there you have it, Um, spacewalk nude, Ben Franklin, Ben Franklin. He's not gonna explode, he's not gonna boil, but he's

he's gonna die, That's all there is to it. But unless he gets inside within a certain amount of time nine seconds, and we have some people on hand to revive him. On that note, let's call over the robot

and have a little listener mail. You know, we heard, we heard a lot of stuff back regarding our episode on watch Stoppers, on the idea that some people just cannot wear watches because they have crazy electronic signals going on in their bodies, or they've got magnetic powers, or they're living too close to high, high tension wires, et cetera. So we did a whole episode sort of looking at that from a skeptic that kind of stirred stirred the

beehive a little bit. We did. Yeah, yeah, And so I'm gonna read just a couple of the replies we received here um with the various ideas about it. This one comes to us from Jen. Jen writes, this is high Robert and Julie I recently listened to your podcast on debunking the myth about individuals who claimed they can't wear watches. I am relieved to say that I was someone who thought I killed my watches, and with good cause. About three years ago. I went through five batteries in

about three months and just one watch. I then went on to wear other watches my backups. I suppose that all went dead within a short amount of time. I finally gave up around the same time. I was at the doctor's office in an exam room when the clock on the wall uh spontaneously went crazy, spinning forward in time three hours in just ten minutes. And you know

that's because you when you're a doctor's room. The clock never met The staff had to take it down and take out the batteries, and then made a comment about my breaking the clock. Sadly, none of this translated into time stopping superpowers from me, no matter how am I not much I tried. After listening to your podcast, I decided to get another battery for my dead watch. I'm happy to say that after twenty four hours, it is still ticking. Thank for the podcast and keep up the

good work. And who is up from that was from Gin. All right, John, let us know if it's still working. I would be curious. Yeah, because, as I mentioned to uh one of our listens on Facebook, it was a little irritated with the with the skeptics approach, and um, you know, like I told her, I would love to live in in a world where humans had these powers. So if there's evidence that it the it that it, that it happens, I would love to hear about it. Well in her case too, wasn't it just a bunch

of different electronics that? Um? Yeah, And I'm affected by her, yes, And uh, it's not just think she wanted to send us some sort of paper she found, which I would I would, So I'm holding off on non reading any of her comments until such time as she supplies that. But we have a few other ones here heard from Eric, and Eric writes and it says the first thing I wondered when you were talking about watch stoppers was can they wear the old fashioned mechanical wind up type of watch?

These watches are powered by spring. You have to wind up every day, no battery, no electricity. You did mention the shielded watches. I bet that would work, not because the watches shielded, but because it's a higher quality, I never stopped to watch. But I did have a very cheap watch that caused my entire arm to swell up and turn red. It was very painful, but the watch

was still working when I threw it away. Well, at least you threw the watch away and not the arm, all right, And we also have a few Facebook comments about the issue. Summer Rights sentence says, good morning, I just finished listening to your podcast watch Stoppers, and I immediately thought of my mother. She has always been one of those people who couldn't wear watches, but she has

also had issues regarding all electronics. She worked for a company that manufactured circuit boards, and all employees needed to wear a grounding band so they wouldn't short circuit the boards while working on them. When my mother first started working there, the QC department noticed a lot of her boards were coming back dead, so they ended up testing

her with a machine at the register's static electricity. As a result, they discovered that even with the band on, the area around her was still off the scale, and the only way that they were able to combat it was to have her wear three bands at any given time. Also, when we signed up for our cell phone plan, I got my mother the same phone iPhone as the rest of our family, and this day she can never keep

a charge on them. I say that them because we've swapped it out at least two times for more than three to four hours. So while I'm sure some things are situational, like my mother's television screen outputting in green bad tube, I couldn't help but think there might be some credence who reclaimed that electronics and her don't have

the healthiest relationship. He had the great work. Sincerely, Summer. Well, you know, I can't help but think about Michael Persinger, who I think i'd bring up probably like once every two months. But he is the guy who worked with transcarannial magnets and was able to actually manipulate parts of the brain that had to do with seeing visions through

these magnets. And he found that some people were more susceptible to the magnets than other people that had a high nobility or a lovability and um, so there's sort of a question mark to me about what that means in terms of electromagnetic activity. I still stand by, you know, a watch as a watch and we tend to bang it around, but that that particular experiment is very interesting to me. The transcarannial magnets cool. All right. We also heard from Kelly. Kelly writes in this says, Hello, guys,

I love the show and the blog. I wanted to write in a tangential response to the past two podcasts on what Human Watch Stoppers and lightning rods. My problem

is to touch screens don't work for me. iPhones, iPods, e readers, and many other devices that are becoming so common in everyday life are close to me due to this handicap, including the self checkout at my local library and many a t m s. While trying to figure this out, my very clever daughter pointed out that is a healthcare worker in an inner city hospital and minor germophobe.

I wash my hands dozens of times per day and also use alcohol based sanitizers nearly as often throwing a couple of surgical scrubs with ionized soaps, and my hands are chronically dry and cracked, despite the best lotions by pharmacists can recommend. All this washing has effectively removed the moisture and sweat from my skin. Thus I cannot transmit

a charge to from a device. I find some help if I use the stylist, because the the metal of the body of the style is touches more of my hand palm and increases the chance of making a connection. In times of desperation, I have resorted to licking my fingers to get it to work. This is a real problem. More and more of the machines I interact with as

part of my work are using touch screen technology. While some of them might use different types of screens resistive, surface, acoustic wave, they're enough ones like this that I'm getting very, very frustrated. I thought you might like the story. Perhaps some of your listeners had a similar problem or nova solution. So far, my best response is to hand the phone to my teenager, who rolls her eyes at how mom

can't use technology. Well, there's the hot dog method. I think we brought up the idea of using a hot dog as a stylus. Yeah, that's pretty um a pretty good way to go, and imagined a began would work as well. There's less Greece. Yeah, but that's interesting, interesting firsthand account of some of the problems that can occur when we're trying to interact with this uh ubiquitous technology. And then finally we heard from Sean, who writes Sinences

High Guys. I was just listening to the Human Lightning Rod episode. I can say from experience that a car is a safe place in a storm, because I was inside one that was struck by lightning. I'm an archaeologist in upstate New York, and I was driving back in the rain from the day of excavating on the New York State Throwaway. We were at a toll plaza and when bang, there was a flash of light in the car stalled. I dream some words you can't say on the podcast. We managed to restart the car and went

back to the University at Albany. In the parking lot, we saw that the bolt had hit the top rear brake light and exited through the rear right tire, which was now flat. Nobody was hurt, just really shaking up. What was really weird was that the rest of my crew, only a few cars behind us, didn't see anything happen at all. I love the show, Sean. Have you ever been in the car when lightning struck nearby? Not to my knowledge, very disconcerting. Yeah, yeah, and thank goodness, there's

the Faraday effect in play right, keeping you safe inside cool. Well. You know, if anyone else has any comments or personal accounts related to lightning strikes and watches that mysteriously stopped working or other electronic devices that we have trouble interacting with in a chronic fashion, but we would love to hear about it, and we would love to hear about your thoughts on this episode about naked space walks, about taking your helmet off, and outer space. Um, about the science,

about the science fiction. I know there's some great examples from science fic and that I didn't mention or am not aware of, and I know you guys and gals will fill me in on that, and I'd love to hear about them. So uh. In the meantime, if you would like to reach out to us, you can find us on Facebook. You can find us on tumbled We're stuffed to bowl your Mind on both of those. You can find us on Twitter where we are blow the Mind.

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