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ESA To Study Human Hibernation
colonist writes "The European Space Agency (ESA) plans to study human hibernation for long-duration space voyages (a la 'Alien', '2001'). Although 'practical hibernation mechanisms are at least a decade away', ESA researchers will make initial inquiries into DADLE (D-Ala,D-Leu-enkephalin), an opium-like drug that triggers hibernation in ground squirrels and human cells. Other subjects of interest include dobutamine, a drug that maintains muscle, and the Madagascan fat-tailed dwarf lemur, the only primate known to hibernate."
This type of research is the future of human space exploration, at least for the forseeable future. Sorry, but light speed, or anything near light speed, just isn't going to happen anytime soon.
The only downside to this is that the space traveler may seem like the trip only lasted a short time period, when it in fact took 10 years. By the time he gets back home his family will have aged 20 years. It actually may be the closest we get to time travel as well (want to see the future? just hybernate for 100 years).
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I wonder if tumors stop growing during hibernation. If they do, then everybody with (expected-) fatal cancer can just hibernate until there's a cure.
Likewise aging...
Interesting but I think they're going to need to work out how to prevent bone loss if you're going to hibernate for a significant portion of the time in space. Anyway I hope there going for a basic science approach to the subject because if dobutamine maintains muscle mass during hibernation then it might also help with coma/bed-ridden patients.
Having someone sleep indefinately is only a matter of controlled sedatives. I imagine their biggest problem is going to be organ atrophy.
If they solve that, then they'll have an extremely valuable spinoff technology that will help everyone from the temporarily wheelchair-bound to the hospitalized.
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I wondered the same thing - and going ahead with this, would it be easier to operate on somebody in hibernation?
Would hibernation be part of a safer anesthetic protocol for surgury? Put the patient into hibernation with local pain killers rather than forcing them into unconsciousness?
This could be a very useful spin-off of this technology and maybe be more important to humanity than facilitating very long duration space-flight.
myke
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1. Radiation shielding on long term voyages seems to be a real bear of a problem for manned spaceflight to the planets. It might be feasable to put a bunch of shielding around a small compartment with a hybernaut where it wouldn't be feasable to shield all the working and sleeping areas for an awake astronaut.
2. By extension, a 2001-like approach becomes workable - Put part of the crew into hybernation, rotate them in and out as needed. In 2001, this was supposed to be because the planetside geologists and such had little to do until Discovery was close to Jupiter, and then the security/paranoia factor kicked in. In the real case, a ship might rotate crew to even out radiation exposure, or put a crewman who was loosing bone mass faster than others into hybernation to protect his health.
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That's cool that bears can maintain a moderate body temp for months without eating. Having a huge layer of fat is usefull. That could be a new diet. You take two weeks off of work, go into hibernation in some lab, and have your body consume your fat gut while you sleep.
-B