Genre nitpick

[AndyC]

The documentary Trinity and Beyond has film of a few nuclear tests conducted in space. It's hard to describe what the explosion looks like. Better to see the movie for yourself. When the bomb isn't surrounded by material it can superheat (air, soil, buildings), and there's no atmosphere with which to interact, the explosion is quite different.

Really good documentary, by the way. Narrated by Bill Shatner too.

[John Morgan]

Very interesting,  I got my information from an "expert" at one of those space centers during a question and answer time.  Maybe they know more now about the whole event now than they used to or the guy didn't know the answer and just decided to make someting up that sounded cool to a bunch of high school boys.  (That was over 20 years ago for me.)

Thanks Albert.

[AndyC]

Come to think of it, without any atmosphere to disturb, even a conventional explosion would look different. Even with enough fuel and oxygen, you still wouldn't get the churning fireball you'd get in air. I think it would probably just diperse in all directions.

[john]

>Then you have "Event Horizon", "Fortress 2", my dearly loved "Farscape" with
>people taking extended unprotected walks in outer space

 Don't forget 2001. When HAL won't let him back into the ship he turns the pod's back to the hatch and blows himself inside.

>I'm no scientist here but don't the crews need oxygen to breathe. Wouldn't that
>oxygen burn in an explosion?

 Babylon 5 brought that up in one episode. While two maintenance guys are watching a space battle, one tells the other that you can tell which side lost a ship by the color of the explosion (which were brief). Since the aliens used a different atmosphere in their ships, it made a different color explosion.

>As for a spaceship exploding, the fire would burn out fast due to the lack of
>oxygen so there won't be the huge fire ball that we see in Star Wars or other
>shows but there will be the initial flame. If there is a fuel source, Like a slush

 I always imagined that it would be a brief fireball that dissapates almost instantly.

>though, fire or not. I am aways amazed that when a movie shows a ship blowing
>up in space, there is nothing left of it. No pieces of any part are left. (OK if it was
>an antimater/mater reaction that may, MAY< be the case. but even the initial
>blast would breck something off.)

 There have been a few movies and shows where you see debris. Regardless of the real reason you don't see anything left, in psace it would be hard to spot little pieces floating around anyway.

[Future Blob]

  Well there's oxygen in the atmosphere of the ships, right?