Important scientific question of the day

“Forget about the fact that you don’t have a parachute. You would be instantly exposed to very, very low oxygen levels. Within three or four seconds, my guess is that you would be breathing like hell.”

Loss of consciousness and death would soon follow purely from oxygen deprivation to the brain, Wagner continued. At the same time, temperatures of -70 degrees Fahrenheit (-57 degrees Celsius) — made even colder by the chill of 500 mile-per-hour (805 kilometer-per-hour) winds — would lead to rapid freezing, beginning with the skin, eyes and other surface tissues.