In this dangerous universe, are you ready to survive?
NASA Advisor Shows What Space Really Looks Like

Space is a rough place.
In the vacuum of space, our bodies would expand to twice their size, and cosmic rays would cause serious problems in an instant.
Not only are there threats from black holes and quasars, but what if you get hit by a micrometeorite moving at 30,000 kilometers per hour?
How will we survive all these threats? Can humanity even survive in space? In this book, astrophysicist Paul Sutter, a NASA consultant, presents the true picture of space and scientifically and humorously explains everything humanity has learned to survive the threats of space.
This is a book that readers who yearn for space should keep by their side and use as a guide.

I hope you survive in space.
If possible, I would like to survive by utilizing more knowledge.
This book contains the latest scientific knowledge gained by Earth's scientists over decades, and in some cases centuries, of research.
In other words, a lot of it is true, but some of it may be wrong.
That's the reality.
I'll do my best to let you know what's definitely true, what's a little questionable, or even just pure speculation.
Again, I want to say this: please respect your judgment.
But I will try to tell you only the truth, at least for the sake of safety.

--- From "Warnings for Travelers"

Let me just say one thing.
Please don't do that.
The air in your lungs is at the familiar and comfortable atmospheric pressure of 1 atmosphere.
But the muscles and sticky tissues inside your throat aren't built to maintain one atmosphere of atmospheric pressure in a vacuum.
No matter how hard you try to hold your breath, the air in your lungs will find its way out, and when it does, it will do so quickly and violently, spreading out into a vacuum and damaging (perhaps permanently) your throat and (perhaps permanently) the more delicate tissues in your lungs, the alveoli, which carry oxygen to the bloodstream, which is now sparse.

--- From "Space of Nothing"

To understand how powerful a punch this thing can pack, remember that its energy is concentrated in a very small mass.
That energy is a combination of speed and magnitude.
Getting hit in the face by a fastball probably wouldn't be a good thing, right? If the ball were a little smaller, you'd have to throw it faster to maintain the same total energy.
Like a bullet, you know.
Who likes getting hit in the face with a bullet?
Now make it smaller than a bullet so it moves faster.
Smaller and smaller, so faster and smaller.
If we keep making it smaller and smaller until it becomes as small as a fundamental particle, it will accelerate to almost the speed of light.

--- From "The Inevitable Spaceship"

The surface where the escape velocity is exactly equal to the speed of light is called the event horizon.
The reason the word horizon is included in the name is because horizon represents an edge, a boundary.
When you stand on a planet, the limit of what you can see from its surface is the horizon.
Beyond that, a completely new world will unfold.
Therefore, the horizon of a black hole is also the point of entry into a new, unknown world, a world that is potentially unknowable.
Why the word "incident"? Well, it's probably because that's where interesting things happen.
I'm talking about an event like a party.
It's a party, but it's also a place where you can die.

--- From "Unknown Black Hole"

There is a word that can be used as an analogy to everyday life.
It is the 'unbind' state.
We are bound.
Because the atoms and molecules that make up our bodies are bound together by various forces.
With enough energy, like a grenade, you can rip apart the molecules in your body and send them flying in all directions.
You will no longer be bound.
You will also die.
This process does not occur often because it requires a lot of energy and is generally considered very strenuous.
It takes a tremendous amount of energy to keep a white dwarf from being bound.
White dwarfs have enough mass to form stars, but that mass is compressed into something about the size of a rocky planet.

--- From "The Brilliant Supernova"

In 1977, the Big Ear radio telescope outside Columbus, Ohio, recorded an exceptionally strong signal that lasted 72 seconds.
These waves were 30 times stronger than the cosmic background radio waves.
It also occurred at a very unusual frequency, the frequency that neutral hydrogen naturally emits.
Was it a coincidence? Jerry R., who was in charge of observation that night,
Eamon was so impressed that he wrote “Wow!” on the printout.
So the name recorded in the history books is the Wow! signal.
What could this signal have been? I have no idea.
Since that lonely night in 1977, this signal has not been heard again in radio observations, even with larger and more extensive methods.
If they were aliens, they would have said "Goodbye" just once before their civilization was forever ended and then disappeared.

--- From "Are Aliens Friendly?"

Again, we're faced with another physicist who enjoys ruining this delusional party we're having, by misleading us into believing that the mathematics of general relativity might actually exist, leading us astray.
Just because Einstein said so doesn't mean it will happen.


It is one of the hottest questions in physics today (and since physics existed).
Time travel to the past seems to be forbidden (there is no evidence that it is actually possible), but it is unclear why it is forbidden.
Perhaps the ultimate answer lies hidden behind the arcane mathematics of wormholes.

--- From "White Holes and Wormholes"

It has already been made abundantly, and painfully clear, that space is a dangerous place.
But it's also beautiful.
It is certainly a very sublime, unusual, wondrous and thought-provoking place.
A canvas painted in the brilliant colors of matter and energy.
Physics is the brush on that canvas.
For centuries the universe has been waiting for us.
When you peel back a layer of mystery, a new mystery is revealed.
The universe is waiting for us to travel.
Can't you hear the sounds of space? We're stuck on this planet, so what we can learn is limited, so we must go into space.
You have to put your hands in new soil and see new light.
To learn, understand and feel.

--- From "The Last Warning"