Astronauts could vomit if they jumped into space

Hanging out in space can do some pretty strange things for the human body, which is poorly adapted to life without gravity. This can create a whole host of health problems, staying clean is a big problem and doing a little pee is very tricky.

But is it true, as a Snapple cap states, that you can not burp?

This is the question that a Twitter user asked Chris Hadfield, former commander of the International Space Station (ISS), late last week, and received a surprising answer: that's right, a little .

You can not jump in space – at least, not as you do here on Earth.

"You can not jump in space because the air, food and liquids in your stomach float together like big bubbles", Hadfield replied on Twitter.

"If you burp, you throw up in your mouth, so guess where the trapped air is going?"

The air can, of course, travel from your stomach and out through your mouth in the space. But the problem is the lack of gravity. Here on Earth, when gases are trapped in your stomach, they rise to the top because they are lighter than the food and juice of the stomach they contain.

In space, where there is no gravity, the gas does not rise to the top. It stays mixed up with everything in your stomach – as in the video below, an ISS experiment that consisted of putting an effervescent tablet in colorful water.

So, if the gas wants to come out of your mouth, it brings that stuff with it. It's sort of a cross between a burp and a drizzle.

"When we die in space, it is often a" wet gnawing ", which means that liquid is expelled," said Robert Frost, NASA engineer, in Quora in 2016. "It's a bit like acid reflux."

And in 2011, Charles Bourland, consultant for NASA's Food Technology Commercial Space Center, said, "If you snore in space, it's usually wet because the liquid and gas do not separate in your stomach as they do on Earth. "

This rather unpleasant experience has also been called "bomit", which should give you an idea of ​​its horror. Imagine that happening in a spacesuit.

There are other problems. You do not necessarily want all this gas to be rejected at the other end either. The space station is a small enclosed environment that can become quite stinky.

In the 1960s, scientists conducted experiments to determine the space regime that would produce the least farts, because, wait, flammable gases were considered a hazard in a pressurized cabin.

Apparently, beans and other foods with high flatulence, such as cabbage and Brussels sprouts, were later removed from the space flight menu, although green beans and broccoli are now included.

And there is indeed airflow on the ISS to prevent astronauts from suffocating by their own CO2 exhalations, so that farts are also far away.

If you end up going into space, there was an enterprising astronaut who found a way to vomit without getting bored. According to the book How is it going in space? by Ariel Waldman, NASA astronaut and physicist Jim Newman, who spent 43 days in space, developed what he called "push and rot".

"He discovered that by pushing against a wall, he could create a gravity-holding force that kept his food in his stomach, giving him a brief chance to expel gas without consequence," Waldman wrote. .

Astronauts are certainly brilliant people.

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