Re: If a small hole is made in a space ship's hull would it explode?

Engineering Question ID Number: 1168867589.Eg

Question: In films such as StarWars we often see the big battleships taking
hundreds of hits and these seem to do very little damage. It is merely out of
curiosity that I'm wondering if the vacuum of space would "suck" the air out with such
a force that it could literally tear the ship to pieces given enough time?

Greetings Aaron:

References:

Wikipedia: The De Havilland Comet

http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/De_Havilland_Comet

Wikipedia: United Airlines Flight 811 Accident

http://en.w ikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_811

Associated Press September 2003: Dangerous Space Station Events Suggest Serious Accident Waiting to Happen

http:// www.space.com/missionlaunches/iss_danger_030925.html

The answer to your question is similar to problems that have occurred with high flying jet airliners.
The first commercial jet airliner, the De Havilland Comet, experienced two crashes during 1954 in which
many people were killed. After investigating the wrecks it was determined that metal fatigue around a
window caused a large rupture in the fuselage and the aircraft disintegrated. This is discussed in Reference 1.

In February 1989 a United Airlines Boeing 747, flying near the Hawaiian Islands, had a door blow out,
rapidly decompressing the cabin, and 9 passengers near the door were sucked out and lost at sea. The aircraft
had to quickly reduce altitude to below 10,000 feet so that the crew and passengers had enough oxygen to not
loose consciousness. You can see pictures of this accident in Reference 2.

There have been many smaller leaks in aircraft and in the International Space Station that were controllable
and plugged. The major issue is how big the rupture hole is and how fast the cabin decompresses. In fighter
aircraft the pilots wear oxygen masks during combat and the aircraft are kept at ambient pressure so that bullet
holes and other damage will not cause explosive decompression as has occurred in the airline accidents.

There is growing concern that the large amount of space junk now in orbit from old satellites and the booster rockets
will collide with manned spacecraft, such as the International Space Station, and explosive decompression may occur
as happened in the United Airlines accident. However, in this case there would not be enough time to repair such a
large hole and the crew would have to try and get into space suits in time to survive.
In an article in Reference 3, potential accidents that could occur to the International Space Station and
other spacecraft are discussed. The Star Wars crews must have put on pressure suits with oxygen to survive the
battle damage.

Thank you for your interesting question.

Your Mad Scientist
Adrian Popa