The Cavewoman VS The Astronaut Experiment

"If a caveman got into a fight with an astronaut, who would win?" This is a piece I wrote about an experiment I set up to find the answer to this much debated about question.

If a caveman got into a fight with an astronaut, who would win?  It’s a pretty strange question, I know, but believe it or not it is actually a topic that is much debated about.  If you type the question into a Google search you will find page after page of discussions on the topic.  There are even a handful of Youtube videos dedicated to the strange but epic fight.

The question of whether a caveman or an astronaut would win in a fight against each other is actually a question of what is better: the old primitive ways or the modern, advanced and high-tech life that we now live.  But if you were to ask the question simply to someone, “Who would win in a fight- an astronaut or a caveman?” you would quickly find that most people would quickly lean in favor of one or the other and they would be pretty certain about their answer. 

About half of the people who answer this question say that the caveman would win because he is stronger and faster and he knows how to hunt and survive.  The astronaut would also be wearing a bulky spacesuit and it would be difficult, at best, for the astronaut to successfully fight off an attacker.  The other half of the people claim that the astronaut would win because he would be able to outsmart the caveman and that the astronauts would have advanced technology, such as laser guns, that the could utilize to defeat the cavemen.  Other than the laser guns, both parties make valid reasons why one would win over the other.  However, I was unsatisfied with the arguments so I decided to set up a realistic experiment to see who would win in a real fight.

One thing you will notice about the question is that it gives no explanation about how the caveman and the astronaut crossed paths or where they were when the fight occurred.  Most people who answer the question automatically assume that the caveman somehow encountered the astronaut in space and that the astronaut was wearing a spacesuit.  Thus, I decided to set up my experiment under similar criteria.  In the plot of my experiment, the astronaut would land on a distant planet and he would encounter a primitive human being.  Somehow the primitive being would be impervious to the vacuum of space, and the oxygen-less environment, but the astronaut would still have to wear a spacesuit in order to survive.  Then the two would fight.  However, in my experiment I set up two scenarios (which I will talk about later) to see who would win.  I also thought it was a bit unfair for the astronaut to have to win a fight while wearing a spacesuit so I modified the question to ask “If a caveman got into a fight with an astronaut would the astronaut be able to survive the encounter?”  All of the scenarios were filmed my friend Justin who is a videographer and I will be posting the video on Youtube once it is edited but I decided that I wanted to write about the experiment.  

Being that I firmly believed that the astronaut would win in a fight against a caveman I decided that I would be the astronaut in my experiment.  I considered myself a good fit to be an astronaut too.  I am a thin, white, clean-cut twenty-six year old man in good health and I served four years in the Air Force as an avionics technician.  I consider myself to be slightly above average in fitness; I am no bodybuilder but I do jog three days a week and I also do calisthenics after my jogs.  Additionally I own two white Apollo A7L spacesuits.  The spacesuits are wearable replicas made by a company that produces space props for movies and I bought the suits a couple of years ago for a film that I am working on but I thought that they would be perfect for this experiment.  Now all I needed to do was find a caveman! 

I searched the internet for a man that would meet the criteria for a caveman in this experiment.  I was looking for someone who was strong and very fit but lean and for someone who knew about hunting and a little about survival.  A couple of the guys that I talked to were real good candidates but they were built like bodybuilders and I wanted someone that was a little on the leaner side.  Finally after an exhaustive search I found the perfect…woman.  Yes, that’s right- woman.  Her name was Tamora.  Tamara was a tough and very successful African-American triathlete.  The interesting thing about Tamora was that she trained for and ran all of her races barefoot!  No matter if the race was on the road or off-road she ran all of them with bare feet.  She was also really into the outdoors and she was incredibly muscular but still lean; her six-pack abs put most men to shame.  I thought that she would make the perfect cavewoman for my experiment and to my luck she excitedly volunteered for it stating that the cavewoman would definitely defeat an astronaut.  Tamora said that she would wear her camouflaged bikini in the scenarios so that she would look as much like a cavewoman as possible!  I laughed but agreed to it.

With my cavewoman crossed off my list of things that I needed I now needed a location.  I wanted to film this experiment outside but I didn’t feel like wearing a spacesuit in the summer heat.  A friend of mine is a manager for a company that leases out warehouses and she allowed me to rent a vacant but air-conditioned warehouse for two days.  Even though it didn’t seem as good as being outside at first, it really was perfect.  It was a large open building but it had lots of hiding spaces.  Some areas were dark and shadowy but there were other areas of the building that you could turn the lights on in and the AC worked great.  I set the dates to rent the building and both Tamora and Justin agreed to meet up at the warehouse on those days.

The day of the experiment arrived and my girlfriend, Kaylee, drove with with me to the warehouse.  Kaylee helped me put on my Apollo A7L spacesuit while Justin went to the hotel to pick up Tamora.  Other than on Skype, I hadn’t yet met Tamora and I wanted to keep it that way for purposes of the experiment.  I wanted the first time that we saw each other in person to be in the first scenario.  As Kaylee helped me put on my white space gloves I began feeling nervous.  I was confident that I would win all of the scenarios but when she started helping me with my gloves and helmet it became real.  I could now feel the bulkiness of the suit and I could hear myself nervously breathing inside of the space helmet.  My pretty girlfriend had a concerned look on her face as she continued to help me and my heart started to race.  My spacesuit was now completely on, minus the oxygen pack and oxygen hoses.  For the first scenario I would not be wearing the oxygen pack.

All suited up, I slowly walked into the next room of the warehouse where the first event would be.  It was a large, well lit room with gray walls and tile floors.  Justin was there filming with his camera as Tamora walked into the room, wearing her camouflaged bikini just like she said she was.  She was even more muscular looking in person; her abs bulged out of her stomach and her biceps were bigger than most men’s.  Her rough bare feet smacked the floors as she walked toward me with a serious look on her face.  My heart was really pounding now!  Tamara stopped and paused to look me up and down and examine my suit.  Then she grinned at me with a look that said “this is going to be easy.”  But I was still confident that I would win the experiment.  Even though she was obviously much more fit than me I knew that I would be able to win because she was still a girl and I was a guy, just to be honest.  My girlfriend’s face didn’t look so sure, however.

The first scenario was set up to be sort of an unarmed wrestling match.  In order to defeat me, Tamora had forty-five seconds to take me to the ground and remove my space helmet which would cause me to suffocate in the simulated oxygen-less environment.  In order for me to win I had to prevent Tamora from taking me to the ground and removing my helmet; if I could survive the forty-five seconds without her removing my helmet I would win.  For the purposes of this experiment we would repeat this scenario five times.  Additionally I must mention that Tamora and I agreed to a no-liability contract before this experiment stating that neither one of us were responsible to injuries to each other.  This meant that this experiment would be 100% live action and that we could use whatever tactics necessary to defeat each other.

It was time for the first scenario to begin and Tamora walked about ten feet away from me.  I was standing in the middle of the room when Kaylee blew the whistle for the scenario to begin.  Tamora’s muscular body became a blur and before I had knew what had happened I was floating in mid air.  Time slowed down and I was suspended horizontally in the air on my back.  I remember seeing my feet and legs kicking in mid-air and I felt completely weightless.  The pain began to set in which snapped me back into reality as Tamora slammed me to the floor.  Tamora was now on top of me and I was in a desperate fight to keep my helmet on as she twisted and pulled on it with all of her might.  I quickly began to realize how difficult it was to fight in that puffy white spacesuit and I was just struggling to survive the encounter.  Tamora effortlessly defeated me by successfully removing my helmet.  It took only 10.51 seconds for the cavewoman to defeat the astronaut!  

Kaylee and Justin helped me up and I was already feeling Tamora’s painful wrath.  Kaylee helped me put my helmet back on with a very worried look on her face.  Tamora was jumping up and down in her corner waiting for the next round to begin.  She had a wicked grin on her face as she looked at me.  I was breathing laborously now from trying to fight the cavewoman off while wearing a spacesuit and I was honestly feeling quite a bit less confident that an astronaut would survive in real life.  Kaylee nervously blew the whistle for the second round and Tamora rapidly approached me.  It was hard to move fast in the Apollo spacesuit and it seemed like she could take ten steps to my one.  I fearfully tried to get out of her way but she firmly grabbed onto my spacesuit with her hands.  The soft white fabric provided her with an excellent grip and I was unable to escape.  My white space boots were now several inches off of the ground and I helplessly kicked my feet feely in the air as she effortlessly lifted me higher and higher off of the ground.  I couldn’t believe how powerful she was.  Sure, I only weigh 160 pounds plus about another 20 pounds with the spacesuit on but still, she was effortlessly pushing about 180 pounds into the air!  Honestly, screamed a little as she laughed while she continued to lift me.  I tried to grab onto her shoulders but my white gloves slipped off of her as she then violently threw me to the ground.  I slammed into the ground, landing on my back and I landed with such a force that my helmet popped off of my suit which was counted as another successful victory for Tamora.  It took her only 3.42 seconds for her to defeat me in that round.  I lay there squirming in pain from having the wind knocked out of me and Kaylee ran over to me to check on me.  Kaylee insisted that I end the experiment but I wanted to finish it.  I lay there on the floor for a few minutes as I watched Tamora’s tough-callous feet pace back and forth as she taunted me a little.  

After I felt better, Justin and Kalylee helped me back up.  I had developed a new strategy to survive the forty-five second round with Tamora… RUN!  I was going to run away from her, around the room for the whole round.  It was official that I had become afraid of that evil cavewoman and I figured the only way I could survive was to run from her.  Kaylee blew the whistle for the third time.  Once again Tamora violently ran toward me.  It took all of my strength for me to turn around in that cumbersome spacesuit fast enough to be able to run from her.  Tamora began boisterously laughing at me as she chased me around the room.  But there was no escape for me and she quickly snatched me up and took me to the ground.  The cavewoman wrapped me up and quickly removed my helmet; it took her 13.20 seconds that time.  I then realized the implausibility for an astronaut to be able to survive an attack for even forty-five seconds.  I barley made it to thirteen seconds and that was because I ran as fast as I could in a spacesuit.  Additionally, I realized how restricted an astronauts field of view is while wearing a space helmet.  While I was running away from Tamora I was unable to see where she was at in order for me to figure out which direction I needed to run away in.

The last two rounds went about the same as I desperately attempted to run from her; the last two times were 9.73 seconds and 8.20 seconds.  Five wins for the cavewoman, zero for the astronaut.

The next scenario would be the final one consisting of three rounds.  This scenario was set up to give the astronaut a slight advantage in that he would have a weapon.  Many people argue that an astronaut would win in a fight against a caveman/woman because the astronaut would likely be armed with a laser gun.  Thus, I was armed with a paintball gun with five shots in it and Tamora was given a paintball mask to protect her face.  The objective was for me to make it all the way across the large warehouse, from one end to the other, without being killed by the cavewoman.  If I saw her and I shot her it would be an automatic win for me.  If I was unable to shoot her but I still made it all of the way across the warehouse then I would still win.  I had an unlimited amount of time to finish the course.  The only draw backs for me was that I had to wear my oxygen pack which added extra weight to the suit.  Additionally, if the gun jammed I would still have to fix it while still wearing my bulky white space gloves and I would not be given a time out; in other words, Tamora could still advance on me.  But probably the biggest disadvantage for me is that my white spacesuit would stick out like a sore thumb in the dark areas warehouse, allowing the cavewoman to see me a lot easier.  As for Tamora, she could hide anywhere in the warehouse and she could attack me from any angle.  Her objective was that she had to disarm and capture me, without getting shot.  She would then have to drag me back into an area that would protect her from laser fire (i.e. behind a wall) and then kill me by ripping the air hoses off of my suit thus causing me to suffocate.  The purpose for Tamora having to drag me to a protected area for her is to simulate a cavewoman protecting herself from other astronauts shooting at her.

Before the scenario began I was given the chance to practice shooting five shots while wearing my spacesuit so that I could familiarize myself with the gun.  It was Justin’s gun and I had never shot it before.  I quickly realized how difficult it was to line up the sights while wearing a space helmet and the way the glass bubbled out kind of made the sights difficult to see.  Additionally, the gloves made it challenging to manipulate the gun but I was still able to shoot it.  Justin reloaded it for me while Tamora went and hid in the warehouse.

I was incredibly nervous.  Tamora already effortlessly defeated me five painful times and if I couldn’t win this scenario it would be game over for team astronaut.  Now that devil woman was hiding somewhere in a giant warehouse that I had to cross, waiting for me.  I was already breathing heavy as Justin handed me the gun. 

Kaylee blew the whistle and I was off.  I frantically searched for Tamora who was calmly waiting for me somewhere.  I was honestly terrified.  Even though I knew it was just a simulation I was still feeling the panic of a real astronaut being stalked by a cavewoman.  I could barely see with that helmet on and it was really dark in some areas of the building.  I then heard some evil laughter but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from and it seemed to fill my helmet.  Just imagine having a space helmet on your head.  It’s dark, you can barely see and all you can hear is your heavy breathing mixed with the sound of an evil laugh.  Is your heart pounding yet?  Something in one of the shadows moved over to the right and I shot twice at it.  “Splat splat” went the paintballs against a wall.  I missed whatever I was aiming at.  “Three shots left” I told myself as I continued walking toward the other side of the giant building.  It seemed like the building just kept going and going and going.  All of the sudden, Tamora ran toward me from the left.  I desperately attempted to swing the gun in her direction as I fired the last three shots but my spacesuit greatly inhibited my movement and she was on top of me before I knew it.  All three of my shots missed and I was out of shots.  I helplessly squirmed and screamed as Tamora ripped me into the shadows of the warehouse and I knew that it was over for me.  My white space boots slipped on the floor as she dragged me to my doom.  Tamora snatched me into a corner, behind a wall like she was supposed to.  I felt so helpless as I tried to fight her off knowing all the while that I was only prolonging the inevitable.  “I am going to enjoy doing this” she said as she wrapped her dark fingers around the white oxygen hoses and ripped them off of my suit.  It took her only 2.55 minutes to kill me in the first round of this scenario. 

I will spare you all details of the last two rounds because I am sure by now that you know how they went.  The last two rounds took her 2.30 minutes and 5.22 minutes to defeat me.  The only reason why it took her so long the last time is because Tamora decided to toy with me by dragging me back and then letting me go, only to catch me again.  I really wish I was able to hit her with a paintball!

In conclusion, there is no way that an astronaut wearing a spacesuit would be able to win a fight against a cavewoman or even survive and encounter with one.  The spacesuit is too bulky to fight in and the helmet restricts the astronaut’s field of view greatly for him to see his attacker during a fight.  Additionally, the white color of the suit would make the astronaut immediately visible to the cavewoman.  Though I have never seen a real cave person, I do believe that Tamora represented one well in this experiment.  Even her choice of garment, a camoflauged bikini, was close to the amount of clothing that a cavewoman may have worn.  Tamora was fast and agile and she used her set of skills to hunt the astronaut in the scenarios.  

As I stated earlier, everything that was performed in this experiment was live action and I did receive a great deal of pain in the scenarios.  I went to my chiropractor the day after this experiment; I made no mention of the experiment to her at first and she asked me if I had been in an accident when she was adjusting me!  It was amazing how even my chiropractor came to the conclusion Tamora had messed me up pretty bad without even knowing about the scenarios. 

At the beginning of this experiment I really did believe that the astronaut would win in a fight against a caveman/woman.  But now I know with my whole heart that the caveman would definitely win.  If you still don’t believe me then you need to watch my Youtube video when it is ready!

Author's Note

Please let me know what you think. Thank you!