Will a vacuum cleaner work in outer space?

Question

Will a vacuum cleaner work in outer space?

Answer 1

Not in space - a vacuum cleaner works by creating suction to pull air (and therefore small particles) into the machine.

No air in space, therefore no air to pull.

Answer 2

If by "outer space" you mean out in the vacuum of space, then no it will not work.

A vacuum cleaner works by creating a powerful flow in an ambient fluid.  Particles of dirt get caught up in the flow in a process called "entrainment."  Farther downstream, a filter or a cyclone separates the entrained material from the fluid flow.

Where there is no ambient fluid, a traditional vacuum cleaner won't work as a cleaning device.

What will happen is that the impeller (the object spun by the motor to create the fluid flow) will spin very rapidly because there's no fluid (air) to slow it down.

The traditional lubricants will quickly evaporate, leaving metal-to-metal contact in the moving parts.  This will cause them to vacuum-weld together and seize.

The wire coils that convert electrical power to magnetic force in the motor will continue to heat up as they offer resistance to the electrical flow.  Normally the air flow cools the motor, but that does not occur in space.  Therefore the motor elements will heat up to the point where they lose mechanical strength.  The bearings will fail.

Hence the motor-impeller assembly will likely fail mechanically in some way within a short time.  Depending on the strength of the plastic housing, the fractures may be contained.  If not, there will be a series of projectiles flung from the failed assembly and may damage adjacent equipment or injure nearby crew.

Answer 3

LOL... yer mind works weird... but yer my kinda nutcase!!.... *smile*......

Answer 4

Good question lol. Don' think so though.

Answer 5

They use small hand-held vacuums in the Shuttle and the ISS, so sure.

But they won't work outside, since there's no air to be pulled through the vacuum cleaner by the fan.

Answer 6

It depends what you mean by 'work' and 'outer space'. A vacuum cleaner in a sealed, pressurized space habitat will function normally and suck things into the hose. A vacuum cleaner actually out in space with no atmosphere around it will run in the sense that its motor will operate when an electrical current is applied, but since there is no air to carry an object through the hose, it would not suck anything in (although things would very slowly fall towards it due to its gravity).

Answer 7

Have you ever put your hand over the hose of a running vacuum cleaner? Notice how the motor revs up to a much higher speed? That's because it's gotten rid of some of the air inside, and there's less resistance to the motor's turning the fan blades.

This would be much more extreme in the vacuum of space, probably causing the motor to burn itself out pretty quickly if you left it on.

It definitely wouldn't create a suction, since there's no ambient pressure to move through the fan.

Inside a space craft, it would work just as normally as it would on Earth at the same atmospheric pressure.