Season 4, Episode 12 - Tangent
Original Air Date: September 15, 2000

Using two recovered Goa'uld death gliders, Area 51 personnel have created a hybrid vessel that looks like a Goa'uld death glider on the outside, and a jet plane on the inside. Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c take the new craft out for a simple test, but they are soon marooned in space.

yeah i have mixed feelings over this episode so i cant really say wot i think of it yet
ill try and make up my mind soon though

humm.... interesting..... death gliders retro-fitting them?? good idea?? don't think so!!

ive made my mind up about this episode it had an intresting touch to it.

Anything with Teal'c and Jack alone with conversations are good!

teal'c whips ass in that death glider very stylish

he was so calm when he wasnt in control of the vessel

i forgot that, that was a little change.
i dont think jaffa have training in jumping out of a mothership

no i dont think apothis makes them jump with parachutes but whenever i see tealc i just have a faint vision of watergate.

I like the scene where the carters find jack and teal'c, Jack is funny during that scene. Good episode.

This was actually a very well done episode, and I thought that the tension was actually handled very well. Certainly O'Neill's reaction to the arrival of Jacob, SC, and DJ was most amusing.

But it's also an interesting follow on to Solitudes when O'Neill and Carter were trapped together. In that episode when O'Neill is dying he starts calling for Sara, his ex-wife. In this episode he is dreaming of Carter. Now obviously it's really her talking to him, but he doesn't know that. He's dreaming about someone he cares for. It's an interesting reversal.

My favourite lines from the show were:

Vidrine: How does she fly, son?
Teal'c (deadpan): The vehicle performed within expected parameters.
O'Neill: Woo-hoo!
O'Neill: Sorry, sir. I couldn't help but get caught up in Teal'c's enthusiasm.

and

O'Neill: Jacob, is that you?
Jacob (very patiently): Yes, it is, Jack. Now do what we tell you.
O'Neill: Did you know your ship's bigger than ours?

It's been a while since I've seen this episode, so my recollection of details may be a little foggy. If I remember correctly, in the end they were rescued by floating across to Selmak's ship by holding their breath. Is this what really happened? If so, I think that this is a huge scientific error. It would be scientificly impossible to do this.

Yes. They were rescued in the end by blowing the canopy on the X-301 and floating in space for a few seconds before being "ringed" into the tal'tac that Jacob was piloting.

However, it is not a huge scientific error. The fact that you are in a virtual vacuum, and note that space is not a complete vacuum, just very close to it, does not instantly kill you. They breathed in 100% oxygen, exhaled, and then were in space for less than 20 seconds.

There are some flight surgeons at NASA, for instance, say death in a vacuum would be almost instantaneous. They offer the following Technicolor scenario: your blood would boil, your eyeballs would explode, and your lungs would turn to red slush.

But the medical literature suggests this view is exaggerated. For one thing, there appears to be little evidence indicating your eyeballs would explode (although your eardrumms might burst). It's true that in the absence of ambient pressure your blood and other bodily fluids would boil, in the sense that they would turn to vapor. But that's not as drastic as it sounds. Your soft tissues would swell markedly, but they'd return to normal if you were recompressed within a short time. Say like the 20 to 30 seconds that O'Neill and Teal'c were in space.

It's conceivable your lungs might rupture, since in a vacuum the air in them would greatly expand. But experience suggests this is rare even if decompression is extremely rapid. The chances are much greater if your windpipe is closed, making it impossible for the expanding air to escape. This is why SC asked them to breathe out any oxygen in their lungs before blowing the canopy.

Death would not be instantaneous. It's believed you'd have 10-15 seconds of "useful consciousness" and it'd be several minutes before you'd die. If you were rescued within that time there's a decent chance you'd survive. Research with chimps and monkeys suggests that if you were exposed to a virtual vacuum for less than 90-120 seconds you might not suffer any permanent damage.

That said, there are circumstances involving explosive decompression in which your body might be torn to bits. This would result not from the exposure to a vacuum per se but from injuries caused by the accompanying air blast. I think that there have been some medical journal articles about a case of explosive decompression that killed four divers. (They went from high pressure to normal rather than normal to vacuum, but same idea.)

The bodies of three of the dead men were outwardly normal. The fourth man, however, was forced through a narrow hatch by the rush of escaping air and his body, to be blunt, was reduced to something very much less than pleasant.

What follows is an excerpt from the 1990 book, Almanac of Soviet Manned Space Flight.

"At 1:35 AM, June 30, the crew fired the Soyuz retro rockets to deorbit and twelve minutes later separated from the orbital and service modules. At this time, the orbital module was normally separated by 12 pyrotechnic devices which were supposed to fire sequentially, but they incorrectly fired simultaneously, and this caused a ball joint in the capsule's pressure equalization valve to unseat, allowing air to escape. The valve normally opens at low altitude to equalize cabin air pressure to the outside air pressure. This caused the cabin to lose all its atmosphere in about 30 seconds while still at a height of 168 km. In seconds, Patsayev realized the problem and unstrapped from his seat to try and cover the valve inlet and shut off the valve but there was little time left. It would take 60 seconds to shut off the valve manually and Patsayev managed to half close it before passing out. Dobrovolsky and Volkov were virtually powerless to help since they were strapped in their seats, with little room to move in the small capsule and no real way to assist Patsayev. The men died shortly after passing out. Fifteen and a half minutes after retrofire, the pressure reached zero in the capsule and remained that way for eleven and a half minutes, at which point the cabin started to fill with air from the upper atmosphere. The rest of the descent was normal and the capsule landed at 2:17 AM. The recovery forces located the capsule and opened the hatch only to find the cosmonauts motionless in their seats. On first glance they appeared to be asleep, but closer examination showed why there was no normal communication from the capsule during descent.

"The Soviets had to give a detailed report on the accident to NASA in preparation for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, during which they said that the amount of tissue damage to the cosmonauts' bodies caused by the boiling of their blood during the 11.5 minutes of exposure to vacuum could at first have been misinterpreted as being the result of a catastrophic and instantantaneous decompression. The cause of death was pulmonary embolism."

No real data has been released on the amount of damage done to their bodies, but from the descriptions commonly published the damage was not immediately recognizable.

So based on this evidence, O'Neill and Teal'c certainly could have survived 30 or more seconds in space without resulting in any permanent injury.

It just goes to show why you shouldn't slap a USAF sticker on the side and call it yours, as Jacob remarked...on another side, I thought Don Davis did a great job conveying the concern for two of his men (and he does consider Teal'c one of theirs) who are slowly suffocating to death out in space somewhere...

Anybody know if the time delay in radio transmit/recieve was accurate? Just curious...oh yeah, and what exactly is ZULU time? Is that just an agreed upon standard time so everyone is on the same reference?

Good episode except for 1 glaring contradicition.

On there way out of the atmosphere they said they could not eject.
At the end of the ep they blow the canopy and float out. (because they unharnessed)

Why didn't they just blow the canopy and jump out when they had the chance?

Other than that it was good. but because of that paradox is was a big let down.

X301 sucked.

i agree. however its a scfic program so i don't think details like that can kill an episode

-I said i was the great magician Oz- daniel
( I think he said something like that cauz i watched it in french version and god sam's real voice is 100x better than in french version! ) I liked this part

At the time they probably didn't think they were going to end up in deep space. Why jump out of a perfectly good craft if it was simply malfunctioning....

Due to the constricted nature of the sets, this was a great character driven ep. We get to see real bits of Teal'c and Jack's friendship, something we all know is there, but never get to see. Jack's "But who will I talk to?" line is a perfect example of that.

Of course, for us shippers this was full of 'em. AT is very good at those subtle little moments. Instead of being blatant and overdone, they're always just tiny touches to appreciate: when she throws the earpiece onto the desk after disconnecting with the guys.

And a special thanks goes out to chiroho for doing all the work. A great summary for those slightly less scientific people. Keep up the good work!

I also liked the respect shown to both Jack and Teal'c by Jacob when Sam tells him what they need. No questions, just "Good enough."

I just re-watched this ep today and again really liked it.

One bit I found very funny was when Jack and Teal'c have just been ringed onto the ship, the rings drop down and they just collapse. It just looked quite funny..that could just be my odd sense of humour though!

I also thought one bit that was very well scripted/acted was just after they rescue them Sam has to report back to base. You can tell that she's itching to go and check on the guys but she still does her duty.

BTW does anyone know at the end it looks like Jack reaches out to shake somebody's hand. Is this just my imagination or has anyone else noticed that?

This was a good episode. Dont tell me everyone didnt feel the love when Teal'c said that him and Oneill were brothers, it brought a tear to the eye