Welcome back to Space Adventures! Viewers, this is a Science fiction show like none other. Each week, we will air a new episode. Each week, there will be an event during the show that defies all known Science; and each week, we will award a prize to the first 25 viewers to call in and tell us what the event is! Strap in because we’re ready for a take-off.
Commander Frakes was grim. One of the space stations had collided with a piece of orbital debris. He and his crew were flying up to perform rescue operations, but there had been no communication with any of the station crew. Earth side command was prepared for the worst.
Blane carefully manoeuvred the Pioneer alongside the docking port of the space station. There was a jagged hole through the hull where the debris hit. The crew donned special pressure suits before opening the hatch. Dr. Eliot was the first to go through. She took a quick look around.
“It looks like a hurricane went through here,” said Hills.
“Yes, that’s because of the depressurization. Everything loose gets sucked out into the vacuum of space, leaving the rest of it a mess.”
“Everything? But the crew…”
Blane called out, “Dr. Eliot! I found one of the crew. He – he’s gone, sir.”
Eliot and Hills floated to where he was. Eliot moved closer to inspect the crewman. He had a vicious gash in his forehead and was half in a pressure suit. Little droplets of ghastly blue blood floated around him.
“His blood,” Hills murmured.
“It’s deoxygenated. There’s no oxygen to react with in here. Help me get him back to the Pioneer, please,” said Eliot gently.
Frakes and Johnson discovered the rest of the crew in the galley, the area furthest from the collision point. They were pretty battered but had managed to get to their suits before asphyxiation claimed them. The only casualty was the man Blane had discovered; he had been very close to the collision point during the accident. The two crew members left the station. Salvaged crew members would come later to dismantle it.
The Pioneer returned to Earth, where the surviving crewmembers were happily reunited with their friends and family. A funeral service was held. Ironically, the man had been experimenting with force shields. Scientists Earth side quickly began advancing his research. Perhaps there would be a way to prevent another such accident from happening again…
Viewers, we are standing by for your calls! What was wrong with this episode?
Answer
There are a number of things wrong with the episode.
First, there would be no liquid blood. In a depressurized environment, liquid literally boils away. All that would be left in this type of scenario would be the solid blood components.
Second, the blood would not have been blue anyway. It is a common misconception that deoxygenated blood is blue, because our veins appear to be bluish and most Science textbooks depict veins and the blood in them as blue to distinguish them from arteries, which carry oxygenated blood. The reality is that oxygenated blood is bright red, whereas deoxygenated blood is a darker shade of red.
