Just in case this situation ever comes up…
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Of course, the accompanying text makes it sound like a most unpleasant minute and 41 seconds:
Congrats! You could survive for 1 minute 41 seconds !
In the first 30 seconds any fluid on the surface of your body would begin to boil due to lack of ambient pressure, this includes the saliva on your tongue and the moisture in your eyes. Your eardrums would most likely burst due to the pressure in your body trying to equalize with the vacuum outside. Unlike what some science fiction films have suggested, your body would not explode.
After the first 15 seconds you would lose consciousness. If you held your breath you could potentially stay alive longer but you risk pulmonary trauma. If you didn’t hold your breath you’d pass out sooner, but your lungs might have a better chance of avoiding permanent damage.
The pressure in your veins would rise until your heart no longer had the capacity to pump blood, at which point you’d die.
Hm. Better to just splatter into strawberry jam like the guys in Outland, I think. Messy and deeply traumatizing to my fellow astronauts, but quick…
Thanks to Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer for pointing me to this particular time-waster.
I got 1 minute, 29 seconds, but in this case quicker seems better from a quality-of-life point of view. What baffles me is the claim that if you hold your breath, “your lungs might have a better chance of avoiding permanent damage.” Perhaps they would avoid damage for longer, or the extent of damage would be less at the time you expire, but the chances of your lungs suffering permanent damage are 100% in all cases: they are going to be smeared across the cosmos very soon.
I think the claim about “permanent damage” is predicated on the possibility of a passing starship picking you up before you actually die…