Even with a canister of oxygen, at 35,000 feet you can't
breath if you aren't in a pressure suit.
Even with a canister of oxygen, at 35,000 feet you can't
breath if you aren't in a pressure suit.
You can breath at 35,000 ft without a pressured suit, but go much higher and you can't.
At sea level, you have 760 mmHg of air pressure. Oxygen is 21% of the air mixture, so you have a partial O2 pressure of 160 mmHg.
At 35,000 ft, air pressure is 179 mmHg [1], so if you breath 100% pure oxygen, you're getting the same amount of oxygen you'd get at sea level.
Go up to 50,000 ft and the air pressure is only 83 mmHg, so even breathing 100% oxygen, you're only getting 50% of the oxygen you'd get at sea level.
[1] http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/air-altitude-pressure-d_46...
Is there, perhaps, some reason why I can't? Lungs exploding because of the 1ATM pressure differential, for instance? It seems that 1ATM is not that much, but perhaps it is... That's what I'm curious about.
I'm sure at some point you need a pressurized suit to make breathing possible, but it likely has more to do with preventing decompression sickness and protecting against the cold (at very low pressure the moisture from your skin will rapidly boil, cooling off your skin).
The summary then would be that you aren't going to survive in a wheel well of an air craft above 35,000 without carrying both oxygen and a delivery system that is capable of maintaining an adequate partial pressure in your lungs.
Now when I visited NASA AMES during one of their many open houses we got to look at one of their U2 research planes and either I or one of my kids asked the pilot why they wore a 'spacesuit' and their response was "Because oxygen masks don't work above 35,000 feet." which, more accurately it would seem its harder and harder to make a working system as you go above 35,000'.
Very cool discussion btw, clearly its a very nuanced kind of thing.
Humans can function to varying degrees at lower partial pressures of O2 than you experience at sea level (obviously, since people live at altitudes of up to 12K ft).
If you have not adapted to high altitude, you will experience cognitive decline at altitudes much higher than 10K ft, although they can be imperceptible. You can also go up to 30K ft, lose consciousness, but experience no long term harm as long as it's not for extended periods of time.
There have been glider pilots who have been caught in massive up drafts, climbed to 30K ft or higher, lost consciousness, then regained consciousness when they descended and safely landed their planes.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/dead-luck-ewas-flight-of...
Regardless (and I feel like such a broken record saying this), meaning in language is determined by consensus, not dictum, and at least for me (a 21 year old who grew up in the United States), "nauseous" can have no meaning but "sickened". "Nauseating" is what I would use for your meaning.
Unsurprisingly, there is little data on this, but what there is seems to indicate that vacuum is survivable.see e.g. http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970603.h..., http://www.newscientist.com/blog/space/2008/06/how-long-can-...
"At 18,000ft (5,490m), experts say, hypoxia will set in, causing weakness, tremors, light-headedness and visual impairment...Above 33,000ft (10,065m) the lungs require artificial pressure to function normally."
Above 33,000ft (10,065m) the lungs require artificial
pressure to function normally.
So I wouldn't count on the canister alone, unless it is connected to a full-body suit.