History Main / SpaceIsCold

While you would freeze in space eventually, you will not freeze instantly. SpaceDoesNotWorkThatWay. In brief, there are two reasons why. But before we explore them, let's recap what "freezing" actually means. In short, the process of freezing means "heat leaves you". There are two ways heat can leave you: 1) convection/conduction and 2) radiation.

* Convection and conduction is simply touching an object, or liquid, or gas. If that which you touch has a lower temperature than you, your heat flows out of you and into it, leaving you colder.
* Radiation means that you are radiating energy... or simply put: you are glowing. You are essentially a giant infrared light bulb. The thing that powers this light bulb is your heat. Unless your heat is replenished by convection/conduction, energy from food or incoming radiation...your heat will run out and you will become colder.

* The RealityIsUnrealistic aspect is demonstrated by all the people who think they found a huge plot hole in the live-action ''Film/{{Transformers}}'' movie, where Megatron freezes upon crash-landing in the arctic, and Cybertronians are stated to be weakened by freezing temperatures, but of course can manage space just fine (they're also expecting ElementalBaggage, incidentally); an example features in [[http://www.lilformers.com/blog/2007/11/05/11052007/ this comic]].

* In an issue of ComicBook/MarvelStarWars, the ''Millennium Falcon'' is trying to escape from Darth Vader in his personal fighter, and having trouble. So they make a tight turn around a large ship to temporarily block his view, and jettison the water supply of the ''Falcon'', which instantly freezes into several large blocks of ice, and Vader crashes into them when he comes around the "corner" at high speed. In reality, the water would ''boil'' due to the lack of pressure, and dissipate into a harmless gas cloud.

* Averted in ''Anime/StarshipOperators''. While normally ships aren't worried about their own heat generation, it's certainly possible for external source to induce heat into a ship at far faster rate than the ship can radiate out. In fact, several ships have been killed by overheating them with repeated laser fire.

* In the ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'' TV episode "Blast from the Past", one of Sniffles' failed attempts to use his time machine to make sure Cuddles, Giggles, Toothy and Lumpy don't get maimed on a playground involves him oiling up a seesaw. When Lumpy presses down on his end, Cuddles gets sent flying into space and instantly freezes, where he's then [[LiterallyShatteredLives shattered]] by a passing satellite.

[[folder:Web Original]]
* In the ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'' TV episode "Blast from the Past", one of Sniffles' failed attempts to use his time machine to make sure Cuddles, Giggles, Toothy and Lumpy don't get maimed on a playground involves him oiling up a seesaw. When Lumpy presses down on his end, Cuddles gets sent flying into space and instantly freezes, where he's then [[LiterallyShatteredLives shattered]] by a passing satellite.
* ''WebAnimation/DSBTInsaniT'': Amber can freeze her opponents by summoning the Boomerang Nebula.
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The first reason is that temperature and heat are physical properties of matter. Space is the exact opposite of matter. Space is the absence of all matter--or close enough that the difference is academic. Asking "what is the temperature of space?" is like asking a bald person what their hair color is. This means you cannot touch space because there is nothing to touch in the first place. This in turn means heat loss by convection or conduction cannot happen in space. (Touching the surface of your spacecraft, however, can be a whole different story). This is how a thermos works, by the way; there is a near-vacuum surrounding the storage space, preventing heat from passing through.

* ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'' averts this. The Autobots have no problems in space, they have a lot more concern with the Arctic, though, where sub-zero temperatures are a major concern.

* Inside the orbit of Venus, you'd bake to death fairly quickly- but still not instantaneously, mind you. Even at Mercury's closest solar approach, equatorial surface temperatures top out around 700°K (~800°F)- this is only a third the temperature of your typical charcoal fire. Like putting your hand on a grill, it'd be harmful but survivable for brief exposures.

This all aside...you still WILL freeze in space. It will just take much longer than you'd think.

* In ''Film/AustinPowers: The Spy Who Shagged Me'', Doctor Evil is worried that Mini-Me may have caught a cold from being out in the 'cold of space' (Mini-Me was otherwise absolutely fine, even after [[RuleOfFunny spinning off into space for at least several hours]]).

Nonetheless, "cold space" is a near-universal trope in SpeculativeFiction, to the point that [[RealityIsUnrealistic aversions are met with disbelief]].

* In the first ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken Franchise/StarWars'' special, [[TheScrappy Jar-Jar]] comes onboard an Imperial ship to visit Darth Vader. Vader tells him to get into an escape pod before the Separatists attack, believing that Jar-Jar won't know that the CIS has been wiped out, when in actuality he's put him into [[ThrownOutTheAirlock the airlock]]. Upon being jettisoned into space, Jar-Jar instantly freezes to death.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' episode "Warp Tour", Steven accidently sticks his head out the Warp Pad Stream. Garnet pulls him back in, saying "It's cold, and there is not much air". And indeed, any liquid outside the stream freezes instantly, such as Steven's snot (he had an allergy, it's '''not''' [[GrossoutShow that kind of show]]) or [[spoiler:the goo from the defective Robonoid]].

* The movies of the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse such as ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'', [[Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol2 its sequel]] and ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'', while showing a more realistic depiction of what'd happen if one was thrown in space without protection, follows this trope to an extent, as anyone who is exposed to the vacuum gets their skin covered by a layer of frost.

* The movies of the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse such as ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'', [[Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol2 its sequel]] and ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'', while showing a more realistic depiction of what'd happen if one were thrown in space without protection, follows this trope to an extent, as anyone who is exposed to the vacuum gets their skin covered by a layer of frost.

* The movies of the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse such as ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'', [[Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol2 its sequel]] and ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'' follow this trope, as anyone who is exposed to the vacuum of space gets their skin covered by a layer of frost.

* Averted in the first ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'' movie, with Peter moving about in space without a suit and surviving for a few seconds in vacuum, then played straight in the sequel, where [[spoiler:Yondu freezes in a matter of seconds after making it into space]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Starbound}}'' plays it straight as well, your character freezes quite fast on moons and in asteroid fields unless wearing something warm like snow infantry armor or aegisalt armors and above, that or just simply start a campfire.

* In ''Literature/HaveSpaceSuitWillTravel'', Creator/RobertAHeinlein very carefully averts this trope, and explains why it needs averting.

* The [[StupidJetpackHitler hyper-futuristic for its time]] [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silbervogel Silbervogel]], [[http://www.luft46.com/misc/sanger.html Eugen Sänger' Orbital Bomber project]] of 1941 relied on a flight path of skipping the denser air around 40 km[[note]]25 mi[[/note]] altitude alternating with jumps into upper atmosphere which were to cool the spacecraft by exposing it to the cold vacuum of the space. [[ScienceMarchesOn Nowadays it can be easily said]] there were far more chances to burn the spacecraft like a meteor.

* The [[StupidJetpackHitler hyper-futuristic for its time]] [[http://www.luft46.com/misc/sanger.html Sänger Orbital Bomber project]] of 1941 relied on a flight path of skipping the denser air around 40 km[[note]]25 mi[[/note]] altitude alternating with jumps into upper atmosphere which were to cool the spacecraft by exposing it to the cold vacuum of the space. [[ScienceMarchesOn Nowadays it can be easily said]] there were far more chances to burn the spacecraft like a meteor.

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]

* Given the game's focus on realism, averted hard in ''VideoGame/ChildrenOfADeadEarth'': heat management is absolutely crucial in spacecraft construction given that only radiation is viable method for getting rid of heat in space. Not only your spacecraft need radiators, you also need to consider that since they're rather fragile (and while armoring them up is possible, it also reduces the radiator's efficiency, not to mention mass penalty), if you have just barely enough and they get shot during combat, you're going to get cooked. This means you might want to install backup radiators, but that would also impose delta-v penalty due to extra mass. This is also something one must consider when designing equipment that needs cooling, since radiator efficiency scales up to temperature^4, but high outlet temperature can negatively affect the system's efficiency and limit what kind of materials you can use.

* Given the game's focus on realism, averted hard in ''VideoGame/ChildrenOfADeadEarth'': heat management is absolutely crucial in spacecraft construction given that only radiation is viable method for getting rid of heat in space. Not only your spacecraft need radiators, you also need to consider that since they're rather fragile (and while armoring them up is possible, it also reduces the radiator's efficiency, not to mention mass penalty), if you have just barely enough and they get shot during combat, you're going to get cooked. This means you might want to install backup radiators, but that would also impose delta-v penalty due to extra mass. This is also something one must considers when designing equipment, since radiator efficiency scales up to temperature^4, but high outlet temperature can negatively affect the system's efficiency or material selection consideration.

* Given the game's focus on realism, averted hard in ''VideoGame/ChildrenOfADeadEarth'': heat management is absolutely crucial in spacecraft construction given that only radiation is viable method for getting rid of heat in space. Not only your spacecraft need radiators, you also need to consider that since they're rather fragile (and while armoring them up is possible, it also reduces the radiator's efficiency, not to mention mass penalty), if you just having barely enough and they get shot during combat, you're going to get cooked. This means you might want to install backup radiators, but that would also impose delta-v penalty due to extra mass. Equipment design consideration also has to pay attention to what temperature their heat output is, given that radiator efficiency scales up to temperature^4, but can negatively affect the system's efficiency or material selection consideration.

* Averted in ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'', when Helix says he does not need air to survive, and Florence replies that he is air-''cooled''
** Rather fortunate as he was apparently planning a "really funny joke" once they got into space.

** When Schlock gets lost in space without a spacesuit (he doesn't need air), the footnote mentions that while he was in danger of freezing to death in the shadow of the planet, the much bigger danger was falling out of the shadow and burning to death in the direct light of the star.

* Played with in [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2017-09-19 this]] ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'' strip: the notes take care to remind us that space is not cold, and then offer an explanation for why bodies might rapidly freeze anyway.