Doesn’t need to be forward and up, just forward, orbital physics is fun that way. And yeah, even if all ~1200 kg of air in the ISS’s pressurized volume escaped at the speed of sound (completely unrealistic overestimate), the station’s velocity change would be around 1 m/s, which is only enough to decrease its orbit by a kilometer or two.
Doesn’t need to be forward and up, just forward, orbital physics is fun that way. And yeah, even if all ~1200 kg of air in the ISS’s pressurized volume escaped at the speed of sound (completely unrealistic overestimate), the station’s velocity change would be around 1 m/s, which is only enough to decrease its orbit by a kilometer or two.