Posted on 11/18/2019 1:24:56 PM PST by BenLurkin
They took as their reference an existing mission study to send six humans to Mars and back in a five year timescale.
The study found the spacecraft mass could be reduced by a third by removing the crew quarters with a similar reduction in consumables, equivalent to several tons of saved mass. Hibernation would take place in small individual pods that would double as cabins while the crew are awake.
The assumption was that a drug would be administered to induce "torpor"—the term for the hibernating state. Like hibernating animals, the astronauts would be expected to acquire extra body fat in advance of torpor. Their soft-shell pods would be darkened and their temperature greatly reduced to cool their occupants during their projected 180-day Earth-Mars cruise.
Radiation exposure from high-energy particles is a key hazard of deep space travel, but because the hibernating crew will be spending so much time in their hibernation pods, then shielding—such as water containers—could be concentrated around them. And existing research into hibernation shows it gives enhanced radiation protection in its own right.
"For a while now hibernation has been proposed as a game-changing tool for human space travel," explains SciSpacE Team Leader Jennifer Ngo-Anh. "If we were able to reduce an astronaut's basic metabolic rate by 75% – similar to what we can observe in nature with large hibernating animals such as certain bears—we could end up with substantial mass and cost savings, making long-duration exploration missions more feasible.
"And the basic idea of putting astronauts into long-duration hibernation is actually not so crazy: a broadly comparable method has been tested and applied as therapy in critical care trauma patients and those due to undergo major surgeries for more than two decades."
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
If they aren’t brought out of hibernation right, that could be bad.
Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
Just remember not to have some alien egg on board when one goes into hibernation.
ROFLMAO!!!!!!
Hey, if you are going to freezie pop the astronauts why not flood the tank with water and free the whole thing?
What about human body waste? Since it’s, or can be, toxic, wouldn’t that pose a problem to the traveling people? Just wondering.
lol
Yeah HAL wasn’t good with the orders towards the end :)
“Scientists have successfully induced hibernation in the current Democrat Presidential candidates.”
Is it let out into space at regular intervals.
Wait till the environmentalist find out :)
I wonder where that waste would end up in a few hundred million years.
More like not having the computer monitoring the hibernation going rogue.
When the ship’s computer realizes that the humans on board are really really stupid, bad stuff happens.... ;-)
And how will they be placed into this state of torpor?
Will they be forced to watch video of the House impeachment inquiry?
If one is hibernation, all your body functions operate at minimal levels so one is not producing waste.
carriage_hill wrote:
What about human body waste? Since it’s, or can be, toxic, wouldn’t that pose a problem to the traveling people? Just wondering.
———————-
NASA has already solved the problem human waste. Several years ago they contracted with the DNC and they collect all human waste and then resell it to the mainstream media.
Hibernating astronauts would need smaller spacecraft>>>>>
Not if they eat a lot of government bacon and beans before they go.
I’m pretty sure they they are already torped...
There is this unfortunate thing that happens with water when it freezes—it expands. Freeze a human body and every cell explodes like they’re glass bottles.
Robot astronauts would need an even smaller spacecraft :P
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