NASA wants to make space travel to Mars efficient — by transporting astronauts while they sleep during the six-month trek.
While the staple of science-fiction movies, SpaceWorks believes it has solved the puzzle of cryogenic sleep. They are borrowing methods used by doctors and modify it for space travel.
Therapeutic hypothermia is used to revive patients having cardiac arrest, which has been found to preserve brain function by slowing the body’s metabolism, according to MedScape. Doctors cool the body with ice packs, intravenous solutions, and cooling blankets until they are able to get the heart and circulation moving again.
SpaceWorks wants to extend this method to space travel and put astronauts in a state of hibernation. The advantages would be that travelers would need less food. Astronauts would also skip the difficulty of space travel, which would seem to go by in the blink of an eye.
The proposed cooling method is not dramatic — bringing the body temperature to 93 degrees Fahrenheit — but has a dramatic slowing effect on the body.
According to a NASA-funded study, astronauts would be put in a sleep-like state using a cooling system, drug, or brain manipulation. The astronauts would still need some sustenance, which would be provided by a feeding tube, which is used now for patients who cannot eat.
There is a wide gap between what is possible today and what would be needed in space
Currently, two weeks is the longest a human being has been recorded surviving in stasis, according to CNN. To get to Mars, the trip would take six to nine months.
SpaceWorks believes that a two-week hibernation would be enough to conserve reserves on a Mars mission. Astronauts would rotate shifts of sleep and wakefulness.
Despite buzz from last year’s research project, NASA seems to have developed “cold feet” about the entire research endeavor, according to Van Winkle’s. NASA declined to fund the second phase of the research.
SpaceWorks president John Bradford still believes in the usefulness of the technology, but perhaps here on Earth.
“Maybe it’s something you go into on the weekend for 48-hour torpor sleep,” Bradford told Van Winkle’s. “The reason they do it for traumatic injuries is that it lowers the metabolism and blood pressure and such and gives the body time to respond and heal from these injuries, so maybe there is some therapeutic benefit.”
While the idea seems outrageous, a cryogenic spa might excite some people. Whether the method will become safe for people who are not experiencing a life-threatening medical emergency is another question.
