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Is Human Hibernation Possible? Going to Sleep for Long Duration Spaceflight
Universe Today ^ | 06/21/2017 | Fraser Cain

Posted on 06/23/2017 8:11:58 AM PDT by BenLurkin

The current state of this technology is really promising.

They use a technique called therapeutic hypothermia, which lowers the temperature of a person by a few degrees...With the lowered temperature, a human’s metabolism decreases and they fall unconscious into a torpor.

...

A few years ago, SpaceWorks Enterprises delivered a report to NASA on how they could use this therapeutic hypothermia for long duration spaceflight within the Solar System.

Currently, a trip to Mars takes about 6-9 months. And during that time, the human passengers are going to be using up precious air, water and food. But in this torpor state, SpaceWorks estimates that the crew will a reduction in their metabolic rate of 50 to 70%.

The astronauts wouldn’t need to move around, so you could keep them nice and snug in little pods for the journey. And they wouldn’t get into fights with each other, after 6-9 months of nothing but day after day of spaceflight.

...

Normally astronauts exercise for hours every day to counteract the negative effects of the reduced gravity. But SpaceWorks thinks it would be more effective to just put the astronauts into a rotating module and let artificial gravity do the work of maintaining their conditioning.

They envision a module that’s 4 metres high and 8 metres wide. If you spin the habitat at 20 revolutions per minute, you give the crew the equivalent of Earth gravity. Go at only 11.8 RPM and it’ll feel like Mars gravity.

Normally spinning that fast in a habitat that small would be extremely uncomfortable as the crew would experience different forces at different parts of their body. But remember, they’ll be in a state of torpor, so they really won’t care.

(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...


TOPICS: Astronomy; Chit/Chat; Health/Medicine; Science
KEYWORDS: cosmicradiation; hibernation; hypothermia; spaceflight; sublighttravel; torpor
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To: knarf

I always wanted one of those chairs, but they were $2000 and I couldnt afford it. Now I can afford it, but they are $4000. Can’t win. Just have to use the one at the mall. Probably just as well. If I had one I might never leave the house!


21 posted on 06/23/2017 9:09:33 AM PDT by bk1000 (A clear conscience is a sure sign of a poor memory)
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To: Maverick68
If we are serious about exploring other planets, we need to start launching payloads of retrievable food, water and oxygen into space right now and build a supply line.

The distances are so staggeringly large. And the faster you go, you have to deal with the dilation of time.

Anyone going on a trip to another star will never see earth again, as they know it.

22 posted on 06/23/2017 9:19:52 AM PDT by FatherofFive (Islam is EVIL and needs to be eradicated)
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To: KarlInOhio
Or it decides to do a detour.


23 posted on 06/23/2017 9:23:28 AM PDT by xp38
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To: BenLurkin
human passengers are going to be using up precious air, water and food

Rather than spending all this time and effort trying to figure out how to induce some kind of creepy, unnatural, torpor-filled state in your crew, how about spending an equal amount of time and effort figuring out how to carry more "precious" air, water and food with you (Hint, hint: Project Orion)? It's only precious because you're not doing that; air, water and food are rather cheap here on Earth. There is no reason they can't be relatively cheap in space too.

As far as I'm concerned torpor, natural or unnatural, isn't something you want in a crew member. If a guy is too dumb to have any curiosity about the natural world, leave him behind. I mean, you can get the entire Library of Congress on a computer chip the size of your thumbnail. That's more than enough material to take anyone from zero to PhD in any subject he chooses. All during a round trip to Pluto! If a guy is disruptive, then bid him night, night. But leave the others alone. I'm sure they'll be able to figure out productive things to do. Life is too short to spend any significant portion of it in a stupor.

24 posted on 06/23/2017 9:27:50 AM PDT by LibWhacker
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To: Pecos

Legacy of Herot?


25 posted on 06/23/2017 9:35:39 AM PDT by Axenolith (Government blows, and that which governs least, blows least...)
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To: bk1000
I always wanted one of those chairs, but they were $2000 and I couldn't afford it. Now I can afford it, but they are $4000. Can’t win. Just have to use the one at the mall. Probably just as well. If I had one I might never leave the house!

George Carlin extract:
Everyone is eating nicely, and you look down and you realize that the dog is licking his balls! No one says anything. No one mentions the spectacular thing going on. Hey, if I could reach, I'd never leave the house!

26 posted on 06/23/2017 9:36:24 AM PDT by BlueLancer (Ex Scientia Tridens)
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To: BenLurkin

Solution: Only send teenagers and launch on Saturday mornings with the admonition that the first one up has to do the dishes. They’ll sleep the entire trip.


27 posted on 06/23/2017 9:39:46 AM PDT by N. Theknow (Kennedys-Can't drive, can't ski, can't fly, can't skipper a boat-But they know what's best for you.)
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To: Axenolith

Bingo!


28 posted on 06/23/2017 10:04:21 AM PDT by Pecos (Actual justice must be defended against the newspeak of social justice crybullies.)
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To: SpinnerWebb
What could go wrong?

Besides "passengers", there is the Robinson Family in Lost In Space, disrupted from their sleep en route to Alpha Centauri.

There is also Forever Young, where the one guy who knew about Mel Gibson died and he woke up 50 years late. (I worked at Pratt & Whitney in East Hartford, CT as a contractor. I could imagine such an experiment being overlooked for 50 years in the bowels of the "M" building.

Oh, and let us not forget "Idiocracy". Like Gibson, the parties stay in place, but for all practical purposes wake up in another world.
29 posted on 06/23/2017 10:29:40 AM PDT by Dr. Sivana (There is no salvation in politics.)
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To: BenLurkin

Just freeze the thyroid


30 posted on 06/23/2017 11:08:37 AM PDT by lavaroise
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To: Bratch

Actually, it worked out fairly well for him, preserving him well past the time it would have taken him to get to his intended destination. How he treated his rescuers was his problem.


31 posted on 06/23/2017 11:38:20 AM PDT by jmcenanly ("The more corrupt the state, the more laws." Tacitus, Publius Cornelius)
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To: allendale
You could sleep for two hundred years, travel at fifty thousand miles per hour and still not get close to the nearest star.

You be in the sun in less than 90 days. The nearest star.

32 posted on 06/23/2017 1:11:58 PM PDT by xone
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To: bk1000
I just discovered the thing and I am hooked.

I can snag the floor model for 3K ... still out of range, but I messaged my MD and asked if there was any medical mojo in him to swing this as a therapeutic tool.

Still waiting ....

33 posted on 06/23/2017 1:43:42 PM PDT by knarf (I say things that are true, I have no proof, but they're true.)
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