
All good Jedi know that the best way to survive a snow storm is in the snugly belly of your nearest Tauntaun. Just cut open with your handy dandy light saber, a single horizontal slice across the midsection will do, push squirming intestines aside, and crawl right in. Warm as it is comfortable, the intestines mold to your body like a memory foam mattress. But how long could you survive in a Tauntaun?
Realistically, the sub-zero environment of Hoth is no place to be, Tauntaun or not. And it’s important to remember that Luke Skywalker didn’t need to survive in his Tauntaun over night, he simply needed a warm place to be until Han had time to build a proper shelter. So, the better question might be, how long did Han have to build a snow shelter until Luke was in serious trouble.
In a normal environment, a carcass gets cold in 8 to 36 hours losing an average rate of 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit per hour. However, the ice world of Hoth is not an average environment. The Star Wars database lists that Hoth reaches nightly temperatures of -60 F. In a frigid, sub-zero environment, body heat can be lost almost 32 times faster. This means a Tauntaun’s body heat could drop almost 51.2 F every hour. Considering that Han Solo’s Tauntaun died of severe hypothermia even before it was cut open with Luke’s light saber, one could assume it’s core body temperature was already well below normal. The problem for Luke is if the Tauntaun’s body temperature reaches freezing point those once toasty guts, blood, and assorted alien goo, will in fact become a frozen coffin. If the Tauntaun died of cardiac arrest due to hypothermia with an average body temperature of 75 F (23 C), and if Tauntaun blood freezes at 28.4 F (-2 C), then Han has roughly 56 minutes to set up a shelter before Luke once again is in danger of losing his life in the barren wasteland of Hoth.
Try a Tauntaun yourself, it’s Tontons of Fun
Don’t believe in the effectiveness of Tauntaun wilderness survival. Find out for your yourself. ThinkGeek offers a Tauntaun sleeping bag, featuring simulated Tauntaun fur and plush light saber zipper pull.
2) The cooling curve assumes human physiology. Highly blubbery animals retain heat, and post-mortem metabolism keeps producing heat. There are reports of whales, seals, and reindeer having almost no change in body temperatures for hours after death. My guess is a TuanTuan is more like a reindeer than a person.
IRVING, L., AND J. KROGH, 1954. Body temperatures of arctic and subarctic birds and mam
mals. J. Appl. Physiol., 6 : 667-”680
Its also odd for a TuanTuan to be running and warmed up to die of hyperthermia when Han has been sitting on top and not doing anything and be perfectly fine. Its also odd it would freeze since its a native animal to Hoth? this is an assumption. So if it is its survival will be like a polar bear to the arctic climate.
Just putting it out there.
I’m also going to speculate that since Luke had been riding his Tauntaun rigorously in extreme conditions, the poor thing’s heart probably gave out much like a horse’s would when ridden to hard over time.
http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/horse-care-index/1370/71227.html
I had the same thought. how could a native Tauntaun die, yet Han is sitting pretty? Maybe, their jackets were better insulated than fur?
And a couple reminders:
Han was warned before leaving the rebel base that his TaunTaun wouldn’t survive the night.
And it was Han’s TaunTaun that was cut open, Luke’s was eaten by the Wampa .
And if it was already sick and dying, it might have had a fever, giving Luke a few more minutes.
That might also explain the smell.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3-Ei1vB0FM
thank you for acting like you are calling attention to a groundbreaking rebuttal when in fact the entire discussion has been about how long Luke could survive while Han built the camp. Nice try.
For Vader,
TK-2243
I agree that the Tauntaun’s body would not cool as quickly as a human’s, but I think it would cool much quicker than a whale’s or seal’s body (whales, seals, and walruses are all aquatic animals that can thrive in waters of near freezing temperature). I doubt any land animal would carry even remotely as much protective blubber, and one can clearly see that Tauntauns are not even built as solidly as Musk Oxen!
Also, let us not forget that mild hypothermia is defined as having a core body temperature below 95 degrees F (severe below 82 degrees), so Luke’s body temperature really didn’t have to fall far for him to be in serious danger.
http://starwarsblog.starwars.com/index.php/2009/10/23/tauntaun-grooms-cake/
PS
I like that Han Solo just gave everyone a lecture on not knowing the difference between fantasy and reality.
Oh, and Kevin? I have one (and always have). Does that count?
Seriously, this conversation is just plain made of win and anyone who doesn’t get that, well, doesn’t get that. They also probably think only guys like sci-fi and all that rot. This isn’t the talk they’re looking for. They should move along.
P.S. – you have just re-awaken my (first) love for SW 🙂
I think the first variable that needs to be disregarded is post-incident injuries… For example, if your finger freezes through, then Han puts up the shelter, having the shelter there won’t fix the finger problem… However, they have bacta and for the sake of simplicity, I’d like to assume that that’s not a factor.
It seems like the primary concern is the exposed areas, even if you’re completely bundled up everywhere except your head, a lot of heat is going to escape from your head, this applies to just about any body part. It seems like the primary reason for Luke’s issues was his exposed areas.
If the Tauntaun did die of hyperexhaustion (seems pretty likely to me) then his core temperature would have been MUCH higher… Now, it looks as if Han is highly underdressed for the kind of cold he’s in and the kind of comfort he’s in. Therefore I think it’s pretty safe to assume that in addition to some very warm fur and down and whatnot, they likely have a heating system within the fabric… I always thought of it being like an electric blanket. Therefore while the cold might have been decreasing the tauntaun’s core temperature, the tauntaun’s temp would have been higher than Luke’s (hyperexhaustion compared to hyperthermia) compared with Luke’s “electric blanket” Luke’s temperature should have been rising for a decent amount of time.
Now, the tauntaun appears to have no blubbler whatsoever when he’s sliced open, so in order to solve the problem I think it’d be necessary to know just exactly what’s keeping this creature alive even in normal conditions… Food was obviously not incredibly available, so I think an ultra-high metabolism is out, then it would have been substantial regardless.
As for the shelters being put up in seconds, I doubt that Han had ideal equipment with him, still, I think one hour is a highly reasonable time.
I really doubt that a grown man could fit inside of a human vagina. Even if we overlook that problem, I believe that the insides of a tauntaun would offer superior heat retention.
If you were traveling on Hoth at all, wouldn’t you have some sort of awesome insta-shelter with you? Seems like an easy precaution to take.
Sorry I’m thinking like a gadget geek and not a science geek.
Depends. Maybe not totally, but…
Tauntaun: As someone noted above, it doesn’t seem to have any major blubber layer, but it might well have organ fat to keep the organs warm, and a highly saline blood that resists freezing and just copes with being cold (or whatever). That would make it much cooler; on the other hand, it might have a very high metabolism with a highly efficient vascular system to pump the blood around. The problem with both of these things is that a low metabolism would lead to sluggishness in the cold, while a high metabolism would require enormous amounts of food. I’m guessing it’s just very well insulated with that there fur stuff.
A lightsaber is not an LED. An LED, while it emits both light and heat, has almost zero electrical resistance. A lightsaber is a free-formed beam of light. Anything that generates light generates heat. An LED generates heat because it basically sets fire to the electrons (is that the right word?). An LCD television or computer monitor generates heat as well, and all it does is display colored light.
How can a weapon (or device of any sort, for that matter) that generates a length-controlled beam of coherent (tangible, physical, visible, etc) light not generate heat? Light is hot. If I shine my LED flashlight on my wooden desk long enough, the area on which the light falls will heat up.
A lightsaber is essentially a very powerful laser. It absolutely generates heat whenever it is turned on. Saying that it only generates heat when it comes in contact with an object is utterly ridiculous. An electric knife blade only generates heat when it contacts an object, because that’s the only time it produces friction (the motor generates heat all the time, but I mean the blade itself).
Anything that is as small as a lightsaber, and has the power output of a lightsaber, generates heat whenever it is turned on. Running wires from one end of a battery, through resistors and then back into the battery generates heat, and that’s not producing anything but electrical resistance.
The databank article mis-represents the lightsaber to avoid answering this question: “How can you fight, for any extended period of time, with a giant heat-producing, coherent laser beam two inches from your hand and not smell burnt meat?”
Getting back on topic: Yes, the lightsaber could have made a viable heat source. But what was Han to have done with it? Stick in in the snow? It would melt a hole through snow, ice and bedrock all the way to the planet’s core, or at least until it hit something hard enough to stop it, or hot enough to fry it’s electronics. Hang it from the ceiling of “the shelter?” Better hope the wind doesn’t blow too hard.
I think that the amount of heat the lightsaber passed to the tauntaun corpse, while perhaps measurable, is negligible. It certainly wouldn’t have had any notable effect on how long Luke could have survived.
This debate is entirely academic, at any rate, because Luke DID survive, so really the question becomes: how long did it take Han to build the shelter?
I have to go with “several seconds, perhaps an entire minute.” To re-iterate a previous comment: I can go to Wal-Mart and buy a tent that unfolds itself in just a few seconds. Then all I have to do is nail it down.
That argument does beg the question: If it only took Han a few seconds to setup the shelter, why bother cutting open the tauntaun? Answer: “Shit happens.” Yes, under ideal conditions, it only takes a minute to setup the shelter. But Luke is delirious, probably dehydrated, and all-in-all, in bad shape. If something goes wrong, and it takes longer than planned to build the shelter, Luke will be okay for the few extra minutes Han needs to fix it. If everything does go according to plan, no harm done. Luke is no worse off than he would have been had Han not stuck him in the tauntaun.
“Plan for the worst, hope for the best,” my dad always said.
So: How long could Luke survive in a Tauntaun? Who cares? At most, it should have taken Han five or ten minutes to pitch a tent and setup a space heater, even in the middle of a blizzard. If he was doing anything more than pitching a heated tent, he needs to be shot for unnecessarily endangering his friend’s life.
If anyone has, in fact, pitched a tent during a blizzard, I will of course defer to their experience, but you can be damn sure I’ll be trying it during the next convenient blizzard.
That would explain Luke’s dire need and Han’s relative comfort.
Yay for off camera exposition!
I assume Obi-Wan could still have appeared to him in ghost-mode inside the safety of the cave. But maybe Luke needed to get close to death in order to unlock his mind and channel the Force.
Has anyone here, actually ever had a woman touch their penis?
(a cardboard cut out of Princess Leia in the gold bikini does not count)
fact: vader can never go to hoth, as it will fog up the inside of his helmet.
on the other hand,
Vader: “Princess Leah! Kneel before me!”
Leah : “Never!”
Vader: “C’mon..why dontcha just um…fog up my helmet real quick and maybe I won’t blow up Aldeberan!
Leah : “what?…fog up your helmet..what the?”
Vader: “Ahem…you know..uh…cough cough…my helmet? ( points to codpiece)
Leah: “Well, as long as it doesn’t taste like a nerfhurder.”
(gargle gargle)
Next time, I’m sticking with the tauntaun. It’s vag is so hot it reminds me of DJ Wesley Wayne.
I said it.
The sales in PBR are strong with this one.
wait, hooper, are you saying vader is really michael jackson?
Wesley Wayne is my father, and Yoda is my love child.
Yoda likes jesus juice, and everyone likes a lil prostitot once in a while.
Can you feel the love?