100 Ways to Die in Space – # 4 Getting too Cold

Welcome to 100 Ways to Die in Space

Hi there bloggies, welcome to a new and fun little feature – 100 ways to die in space. Taking inspiration from a million ways to die in the west I’ll be taking a somewhat tongue in cheek at the many and various ways that space is somewhat unkind to the average human being and it pretty effective at killing them very quickly. Step aboard and see what happens, just don’t come on wearing a red top!

Method 4 – Getting too Cold.

As I touched on in the last post about heat, space is a funny and extreme place. Despite the danger of too much heat it’s more likely that you’re going to get too cold. With the vastness of space and it’s emptiness far from the warming rays of a Sun most places are far too cold for a human visitor.

Just going to Mars our nearest neighbour on the way out of the solar system would mean a pretty rapid death from the extreme cold, but that’s just a short hop. If we were to land on some of the planets and moons in the outer parts of our little solar system they’re so cold that we’re likely to melt through the surface before being frozen solid in a pool of Methane or ammonia or something equally unpleasant.

Something that’s worth noting at this point, although it’s not necessarily going to kill you as such is that the outer solar system is a pretty smelly place. With sulphur and methane and ammonia making up the outer reaches of the solar system it’s likely you’re going to need an air freshner of some kind. A place that smells of rotten eggs, farts and such all mixed together is far from appealing – so why are you even out here?

Anyway, I digress. The point is that it’s sold cold out there that the average human is now the hot thing, but being so small will soon be frozen into a fairly sizable block of frozen something. The only glimmer of hope (there isn’t much glimmer out there as you’ll notice it’s quite dark) is that you have frozen so quickly that there’s an outside chance that if someone is able to dig you up and carefully thaw you out in the microwave that you might come back to life.

I personally am not willing to risk it. But that’s just me.

Life the Universe and Everything – Time is No Illusion

In this series of posts I’m going to look at the human perspective and ask questions like ‘What does it mean to be human?’ or ‘How can I be a better Human?’ with a little sprinkling of ‘How can I be more comfortable as a human?’In this mad world we’ve been enduring especially over the…

Keep reading

Thinking about it makes it Hurt – Kids and Technology

I’m sorry, it’s me – I can’t help it. I’ve tried to keep the insanity from the door of this corner of the web but I can’t do it any longer. The world in which we live is wonderful, beautiful and terrible thing and yet there’s few – well quite a lot of people actually…

Keep reading