Can you survive by holding your breath in space?

Davros say: You cannot hold your breath in space. The moment the pressure is gone the air in your lungs will rapidly expand and seek any possible exit out of your body. If the mouth is clamped shut it will leave via the nose. If the nose is covered too it will use the ears instead. All the while it's doing this it's rupturing the lining of your lungs, throat, mouth, nasal and ear passages and bursting blood vessels. Think what it's like when you violently shake a bottle of soda and open the lid. That's what will be going on in your lungs, only messier.

Your best bet is to breathe out everything in your lungs before the loss of pressure. That way you can avoid most of the messy trauma. You'll then get at best 10 seconds of consciousness to either try and do something to find safety or pray that somebody is going to rescue you before brain death occurs a few minutes later.
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Funnelweb say: If you look again you will see he doesn't hold his breath, he blows the air out of his lungs. Holding your breath can cause lung trauma from the pressure differential. You are conscious for a few seconds, the time for blood to get from your lungs to your brain. After that the blood reaching your brain is devoid of oxygen and you rapidly lose consciousness.

In the film these few seconds were apparently enough for him to grab the lever which closed the outer airlock door and then to press another button to flood the airlock with oxygen. This was a pretty desperate move, but he had no alternative. If he had missed the lever he would have been ejected back out into space and certain death, leaving the computer in command of the ship.

In the book it didn't happen like this. Bowman realised that Poole was dead, and he didn't take the space-pod out to get his body. Instead the computer opened the main airlock doors, rapidly blowing all the air out of the ship, and Bowman was in near-vacuum for a few seconds before he reached an emergency locker.
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someg say: Only for a couple of days.
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