THE VACUUM
OF SPACE.
HOW ARE THEY
NOT DEAD.

FakeX has extensive experience with vacuums. We have a Henry. We have had a Henry for eleven years. He is red. He has a face. He is reliable, cheerful, and has never once complained about the state of the facility floor, which is more than can be said for most of the team. We also have a Vax. The Vax is for the wet stuff. We do not talk about the Vax incident of 2023. The point is: we understand vacuums. We have thought about vacuums. We have emptied vacuums. We have replaced the bags in vacuums. We are, within the domestic appliance sector, considered knowledgeable.

We do not have a Dyson. We looked at the Dyson. We read the reviews. We watched the adverts with the man explaining the cyclone technology in a very serious voice. We then looked at the price. We decided against the Dyson. The Henry does the same job for a fraction of the cost and does not require a degree in fluid dynamics to empty. We stand by this decision. We will continue to stand by this decision.

The vacuum of space is not, we have been informed, the same as a Henry. This came as something of a surprise. In space, we are told, there is essentially nothing. No air. No pressure. No atmosphere. A near-perfect vacuum extending in all directions for an essentially infinite distance. This is, by any measure, a more thorough vacuum than anything the Dyson corporation has ever produced, and they have been at it since 1993.

The vacuum of space has a pressure of approximately 10⁻¹⁷ pascals in the deepest interstellar regions. For context, the Henry operates at around 20,000 pascals of suction. Space is, therefore, approximately 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times more vacuum than a Henry. We find this number implausible. We have written it down several times. It does not get more plausible.

This is the question. This is the central question. A human being, in the vacuum of space, without protection, would — according to the establishment — experience ebullism (their blood would boil), hypoxia (no oxygen), hypercapnia (carbon dioxide poisoning), and exposure to radiation, extreme temperatures, and micrometeorites, all simultaneously. They would, in short, have a very bad time. They would not survive. This is agreed upon.

And yet. There they are. Floating around. Doing spacewalks. Fixing things with spanners. Waving at cameras. Apparently fine. In a suit. A suit that is, when you look at it closely, essentially a very expensive onesie with a fishbowl on top. We have looked at the suit. We have looked at it for a long time. We have several questions.

The establishment tells us that the EMU — the Extravehicular Mobility Unit, which is what NASA calls a spacesuit when they want it to sound more impressive — has twenty-two layers. Twenty-two. The Henry has one layer. It is a bag. It works perfectly. We are not saying twenty-two layers is excessive. We are saying that twenty-two layers is a lot of layers and we would like to know what each of them is doing.

The layers include, apparently: a liquid cooling and ventilation garment (a onesie with tubes in it that circulates cold water around the body), a pressure bladder (the bit that stops you exploding), a restraint layer (the bit that stops the pressure bladder from becoming a balloon), a thermal micrometeorite garment (the bit that stops you being hit by small rocks travelling at 28,000 kilometres per hour), and several other layers whose names we have read and immediately forgotten. The point is: it is complicated. It is very, very complicated. And it works. Apparently. We find this suspicious.

Outside the suit: essentially zero pressure. Inside the suit: approximately 29.6 kilopascals of pure oxygen, or about 30% of normal atmospheric pressure. The suit is, in effect, a small personal atmosphere that the AstroNOT carries around with them. It is pressurised. It is sealed. It is, in theory, keeping the AstroNOT's internal pressure from equalising with the external pressure of space, which would be fatal and also quite messy.

FakeX has attempted to understand the engineering involved in maintaining a pressure differential of approximately 101 kilopascals across a flexible fabric suit while the wearer moves their arms, bends their knees, and operates a spanner. We have attempted this for some time. We remain impressed. We are not saying it is impossible. We are saying that our attempts to maintain pressure in a bouncy castle using a bicycle pump have not gone well, and a spacesuit is considerably more demanding than a bouncy castle.

In direct sunlight in space, the temperature is approximately +120°C. In shadow, it is approximately -160°C. These two temperatures can occur within seconds of each other as the AstroNOT moves in and out of the shadow of the spacecraft. The suit handles this. The suit handles a 280-degree temperature swing. The Henry, for comparison, has two settings: on and off. We are not criticising the Henry. The Henry was not designed for space. We are simply noting that the thermal management requirements of a spacesuit are considerably more demanding than those of a domestic vacuum cleaner.

The suit uses a combination of reflective outer layers, insulating inner layers, and the liquid cooling garment to manage temperature. It also uses the sublimator — a device that removes heat by converting water ice directly to vapour in the vacuum of space. This is, we will admit, quite clever. We do not fully understand the sublimator. We have read about the sublimator three times. We understand it slightly less each time. We consider this a personal failing and are working on it.

FakeX has reviewed the available evidence on spacesuit technology, vacuum physics, pressure management, thermal regulation, and the general concept of a human being surviving in an environment that is, by every measure, completely hostile to human survival. We have concerns. We also have, and we say this reluctantly, a degree of respect.

The spacesuit is, when you look at it properly, an extraordinary piece of engineering. It is a one-person spacecraft. It keeps a human being alive in conditions that would kill them in approximately ninety seconds without it. It does this reliably, repeatedly, and while the wearer is doing manual labour with their hands. We are impressed. We are still suspicious. But we are impressed.

We will continue to use the Henry for our facility floor. We will continue to avoid the Dyson on grounds of cost. We will continue to regard the Vax with the wariness it deserves. But we acknowledge, formally and in writing, that the vacuum of space is a different category of problem to the one the Henry was designed to address, and that the people who solved it did a better job than we would have done. We have submitted a funding application to build our own spacesuit. It has been rejected. We are not surprised.