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I think the question has two answers:
Are they locked from the outside? And are the locked from the inside?
My understanding is that they are actually locked. Here are two links with some information.
First, there's an interesting bit of lore about the doors on the space shuttle that might shed some insight:
*What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he’s not coming back? [Ars Technica]*
Apparently the Space Shuttle originally had a handle for opening the door that was found after the shuttle entered use to have a bad habit of instilling a bit of "call-of-the-void". They eventually added a padlock. Also, it should be noted that these doors are not Star Trek-like sliding doors with a bunch of electronics. They're much more like submarine bulkheads with big-ass mechanics, as I understand it. This was on the shuttle, but I think the design logic of the ISS was inherited from the space shuttle.
Second is this post on Stack Exchange:
*Is there no physical security in space, other than being in space? [Space Exploration Stack Exchange]*
User TidalWave explains how hatches in general on the ISS are not accessible from the outside. They're opened from the inside. I would assume that some exceptions probably exist for edge cases. They must have had a way to get in the first time, for instance. But by and large, it appears that the ISS is not accessible from the outside.
When they eventually deorbit the space station they'll need a way to close and lock the door from the outside when everyone else is out.
Yes, they won't need an atmosphere if there are no people on board but undocking the station side hatch open would cause it to vent the atmosphere and anything not tied down. This could cause the station to spin uncontrollably and potentially do damage to the return craft with the crew on board.
So there must be some sort of way to manipulate the lock from the outside on at least one of the docking ports.
This would also be necessary in an event where they needed to evacuate the station.
Not necessarily. There are lots of comparisons to submarines but it's more comparable to airplanes. Part of the security on a plane is that it is physically impossible to open the door while the plane is flying. The pressure difference between the pressurized inside and thin air outside would require superhuman force to open.
In a similar vein, when the ISS was constructed it wasn't initially pressurized. This would make opening the door from the outside trivial from a pressurization standpoint. As long as the only means to pressurize it could be triggered from inside, there'd be no way it would be pressurized without someone inside.
Is it physically impossible or physically impossible for a human? Obviously something can punch a hole through it, but is the material not strong enough to sustain the force needed for it and to hold together?
Physically impossible to open the door in a fashion it was meant to be. Airplane doors are designed to open inwards. The air pressure inside the plane pushed the door into place evenly over the entire surface. Given an approximate pressure differential of 8psi spread across a minimum 24x48" airplane for would be 10,752 pounds of force that would need to be overcome to open the door. There is no way to apply that kind of force from inside the plane that wouldn't catastrophically damage the door prior to opening. You can't just pull the handle that hard without it breaking. There'd be nothing to grab that would pull out in without failure.
So maybe you could rig up a machine to break a portion of the door and create a hole. But the door would in no way be intact or functional afterwards.
For a human. By having doors open towards the side with the higher pressure it makes actually moving the door exceptionally difficult even if the handle is actuated to allow it to open. I'm also pretty sure that most airplanes have mechanical latches that prevent the handle from moving to the open position as well.
However, everything is possible with enough and properly applied forces. You may not end up with the door in the same shape you started with though.
That is a super cool implementation of physics.
Interesting. But surely they must have had a plan to recover the station if crew were all incapacitated? With it now being near end of life it doesn't matter as much, but early on when billions had been invested? They surely wouldn't have canned the station in event of a catastrophic air leak?
"Lockpicking lawyer here, and this one is a doozy"
HAHAHAH