Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
In order to leave the Earth’s atmosphere, a spacecraft requires a rocket capable of providing enough thrust to escape the planet’s gravity. Theoretically speaking, could a person make their way to space using, um… an “alternative” means of propulsion?
Or, to put it more bluntly, could you fart your way through space?
Believe it or not, the folks at PBS Space Time tackled the issue in a recent webcast, investigating whether or not a person could use flatus expelled through the anus as a means of space travel. As it turns out, it is theoretically possible to travel through the abyss using your bodily gases.
Breaking wind and rocket propulsion: not too different after all
The key word is theoretically, because the first thing that the webcast points out is that a person would not be able to wear a spacesuit in order for flatulence-based space travel to work – or, at the very least, he or she would need a suit that could allow the gas to escape, unlike the suit in Rocketman.
If you assume that is possible, then the laws of physics dictate that fart travel is space is possible. This would be possible since rockets work by pushing fuel in one direction, and physics cause a push-back that propels the rocket in the opposite direction, upwards, and off the planet’s surface. The process is actually more complicated than that, but that’s generally how spacecrafts lift off.
Flatulence, the video explains, is essentially just throwing gas out of your body in much the same way that a booster pushes fuel during rocket launches. Passing gas produces gas on a small-scale, meaning that it does not cause any noticeable push-back, but it would be a different story in the near-vacuum conditions of space.
300,000 years would be one loooooong fart
So while the answer is technically, yes, you could travel through space using only “natural gas,” it wouldn’t exactly be a speedy way of getting from Point A to Point B. According to PBS Space Time, it would take the average person 300,000 years to fart their way from the Earth to the moon – provided you were already in space when you started.
If you’re trying to start from the planet’s surface, forget it – the video explains that, even if you started out from low Earth orbit, you would fall short of escape velocity by a factor of about one million, pretty much dooming your one-man, burrito-powered EVA from the start.
“Even the most prolific farter would be hard pressed to toot their way to anywhere in less than several hundred years,” Gizmodo added, noting that peeing would actually be a better solution, “so just keep that in mind the next time you’re floating just a few too many meters from the ISS and need to dodge a deadly cloud of space debris. And stay hydrated.”
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