If you lose pressure your blood literally boils- does she know that? This is a dumb story.
Yes, I'm quite certain that she knows that. With seven years of work behind it so far, and an admission that they have a lot of work yet to do, I'm sure the project is not exactly "dumb" either.
Professors at MIT tend to be fairly bright.
What happens is that your lungs start to work backward, giving up gases, including O2, to the vacuum.
You would most likely experience a red-out from the capillaries bursting in your eyes.
Any way, most fit people probably could survive for about 90 seconds. At that point, they'd have to be immediately put in pressurized 02 to have a chance of surviving.
In space, skin in a pretty good insulator without air transferring heat, but all the moisture and oils evaporate.
Oh, and if you're near a star, even at the Earth-Sun distance, any exposed flesh will get a nasty sunburn.
Did I mention that it gets to uncomfortable in 10 seconds or less after the loss of pressure?