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Airlocks are chambers with two hermetic doors used to enter and exit pressurized environments. They prevent decompression sickness and are used in submarines, spacecraft, clean rooms, and laboratories. Airlocks have been depicted in popular fiction, such as in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
An airlock is a special chamber used to enter and exit pressurized environments, such as submarines or spacecraft. It consists of two hermetic doors and a central chamber where air pressure and other factors can be controlled as needed. Only one airlock door is open at any given time; the other remains closed until the first door has been sealed. This creates a buffer zone to maintain pressure and atmosphere within the enclosed space. It also prevents decompression sickness, a potentially fatal condition caused by rapid changes in pressure on the human body.
Engineering advances of the 19th century included the first submarines and ambitious underwater construction projects such as suspension bridges. Work on these structures was complicated by caisson disease, later known as decompression sickness. The human body is unable to adapt to rapid changes in external pressure; in extreme cases, it can result in death. Eventually, visitors to underwater environments such as deep-sea divers learned to use special chambers that slowly changed the external pressure, allowing the body to adapt. Refinements in this technology have led to the modern airlock.
With the advent of space travel in the 20th century, the airlock was given a new purpose. The hostile environment of outer space presents numerous dangers, including radiation, extreme temperatures, and lack of atmospheric pressure. Spacecraft and space stations are equipped with airlocks so that astronauts can safely leave the vehicle for spacewalks or transfers to other vehicles. Before a spacewalk, astronauts sometimes “camp” in an airlock overnight. Ambient pressure is slowly reduced during this time, preventing the onset of decompression sickness.
Airlocks have other specialized uses in terrestrial environments. The “clean rooms” used to produce high-quality electronics often have air chambers to keep out dust and contaminants. Chemical and radioactive laboratories use airlocks to prevent hazardous materials from escaping controlled areas. Many public and private buildings have double door construction for well-used entrances. While not truly airtight, these passageways are sometimes called airlocks, as they help insulate the building’s internal environment from external conditions.
Airlocks are familiar to most people from their depictions in popular fiction. Underwater dramas like The Hunt for Red October and The Deep Depth set suspenseful scenes in or around airlocks. TV shows like Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica reference a science fiction concept sometimes called “spacing.” This is a procedure for killing someone by throwing them out of an airlock without a protective suit. Perhaps the most famous airlock sequence appears in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which an astronaut attempts to manually enter a spaceship that has been taken over by a renegade computer.
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