Slashdot Mirror
Hibernating to Mars
neutron_p writes "Manned missions beyond the Moon are no longer wild dreams. NASA plans a manned mission to Mars before 2020. With automatic systems in control, astronauts would face the challenge of living in a confined space with not much to do for an extremely long period. 'Might as well sleep it off!' Studies initiated by ESA have gone one step further. Wouldn't it be nice if astronauts could hibernate! ESA biologists are conducting investigations into the physiological mechanisms that mammals use to hibernate."
Haven't they been doing that in movies for years now?
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
ESA To Study Human Hibernation
Posted by timothy on 10:20 AM -- Wednesday August 04 2004
from the that-report-will-be-a-snooze dept.
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."
works for most of USA
Just gather up a bunch of geeks and toss them in the capsule. Once they get away from Earth, send a message letting them know that you accidentially packed decaf. Once the panic wears off, they'll sleep the rest of the trip.
This strikes me as having two BIG problems right from the start:
This would be great, if it works, but I bet we end up doing it the hard way...
"I'm a scientist! I don't think, I observe!" - Dr. Clayton Forrester
Crazy scientist is creating psychotic robot that has the ability to wake or kill hibernating humans.
Given that a proposed trip to Mars would have an approximate duration from launch to returning to Earth of between 400 and 650 days, if they're looking for a volunteer to sleep that long...
Due to lack of disk space this user has been discontinued
Make them earn their passage by doing some programming along the way. Set up the food dispensers so that if you don't work, you don't eat. That will keep them occupied!
It would suck to be stuck in a spaceship for three years, sure. But it would also suck to fall asleep and wake up three years later -- and three years older, with absolutely nothing to show for it. Sure, external sources of damage would be nearly eliminated, so you wouldn't be three years shorter of telomeres. Also, being in one place for the duration means hard radiation shielding is much more practical than trying to hard shield the entire ship.
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
Hmm sounds like 2001: A Space Odyssey a few years late.
Expect NASA to announce, in the next few months, that physical requirements for astronauts have now changed. All prospective recruits must now have at least 400 lbs. of body fat.
Stories like this illustrate why people who say things like "why are we spending all this money on space when we have so many problems to solve here on Earth" need to rethink their arguments. Not only would true hibernation open up voyages to destinations much farther away than Mars, but being able to put humans into hibernation would have enormous medical implications -- imagine hibernating through surgery, or in the case of something incurable, being put into hibernation (thus, persumably, greatly slowing the process of the disease) until a cure is found. Also, the advances necessary to acheive this would lead to a much better understanding of human biology generally, with attendant medical advances we can't necessarily imagine at this point.
The usual counterargument to this is, "But if we spent the money studying ___ for its own sake, we would make the same discoveries, without the overhead of space flight!" This misses the point, IMO; we could do the research, but without an obvious need such as space flight creates, we generally wouldn't. Space exploration has provided the justification for some of the most important research the world has ever seen -- the reason "space-age technology" has fallen out of favor as an advertising slogan is because the stuff is now so woven into the fabric of our daily lives that we no longer think about its origins -- and clearly continues to do so.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Slashdot archives That should keep them busy for awhile
I'd have to recommend near light speed instead. First of all, the trip will be faster. And as an added bonus, time will pass faster.
The trip will feel as if it was from now... to... now. Or even faster, from now to now. Or maybe even from nowtonow if they are really close to light speed.
The one advantage with the hibernation thing is that they might feel really rested when they get there.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
just show them how to play everquest. Though it might be difficult later to actualy get them to leave their computers and walk on mars.
...not to hit the snooze button when you get there.
Find free books.
One of the problems in space is your body begins to weaken since there is no gravity. That, with the fact that a year of not moving even on earth would make you too weak.. One wonders.
-Eric
Just look at 2001: A Space Odyssey; if you hibernate to a distant place with a super AI computer watching over your critical life support functions and the spaceship, you'll die a nasty, red-LED blinking death. Just don't codename the computer HAL 9000...
CNN-reporter: I'm standing here with Mr. Carter, first human on Mars. So, tell me, Mr. Carter, how was it like?
... if only I could return. Maybe tonight.
Mr. Carter: *Gasp* I don't know. O.K. I guess, but I had this wonderful dream about a great pink mushroom and a sea of chockolate. Ahh
Look a monkey!
No, I've made up my mind. Near light speed is better. Just because, can you imagine how bad you would have to go when you got there? And there is probably only room for one bathroom on the ship.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
>>the physiological mechanisms that mammals use to hibernate
Ninjas are mammals.
Well if you studing Hibernation, someone has to eventualy try and take a "sample" from a sleeping bear. Thus, why that guy in the "Bear-Proof" suit started on his apparently mad quest to build that strange contraption. He sold the prototypes on Ebay which was listed here some time ago. But his plan may soon be needed if the ESA has their way.
What could possibly go wrong with that?
... do I have to live on salmon and wild berries? I like salmon well enough, but berries make my nether region itch.
sigs, as if you care.
Lets just hope that this doesn't run on windows.
Those poor bastards, they have us surrounded. Now we can fire at them in all directions!
I say you surf the net and find the biggest net geeks they can find that never log off. After a spot check at their house to see they do in fact only leave their room to shit, get pizza, soda, and beer then sign them up to be astronauts. These guys wouldn't even notice they have left earth, much less have difficulty handling the isolation. That is of course till Halflife 3 came out and wouldn't run on their computers.
Then we would have to have an emergency mission. Of course we could get ATI or NVIDIA to pay for the privlage of being "the official sponser of the graphics card upgrade rescue mission".
I'd much rather they spent their time and money on building faster rockets, and avoid the long-travel-time problem altogether.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Wouldn't a long trip without the prospect of seeing friends and family for 4 years (assume 2 years each way) with lack of light and natural exercise plus the fact of being stuck with the same people cause depressive like symtoms in the astronauts.
E.g. Oversleeping, loss of appetite, general tiredness etc.
Would these symtoms actually be useful for a long Mars like trip or would it backfire with the astronauts freaking out?
Perhaps studies carried out of prisoners kept in near isolation with a borderline diet could give some pointers as to what to expect.
I thought that astronauts needed daily exercise to avoid bone and muscle loss.
Wouldn't sleeping during the trip be detrimental to their health?
Oh, and I don't thing that using small electric jolts to stimulate the muscles would work. There was a class action lawsuit against a company that sold such a device as exercise equipment because it didn't work. Repetitive arm movements to type and to use the mouse require more muscular strength than those devices produce but you don't see computer geeks (like me) with super strong forearms and wrists.
Cheers,
Adolfo
I'm a high school teacher and the FASTEST way to initiate a deep, quasi permanent sleep in another person is to turn on a projector of some sort while also telling them to follow along in a text book. I have one student in a class that is now 45 years old and I still can't wake him up!
If you can't sleep it off, why not play video games, read books, or something else? It seems like a simple solution.
We could do experiments along the way that could only be done in space. Do studies of long term exposure to weightlessness. See if certain biological systems and other systems function differently in space. If one of the voyagers are artistic you could write a novel or make some art etc...
My UID is prime is yours?
wont it be nice to have a president whose term in office you can sleep through?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I would just spend all day reading Slashdot.
Oh, wait...
The latest Slashdot meme.
Or hibernate prisonners so they take less place, surveillance and don't appeal... reminds me of some movie from Spi*lerg and/or book from P. K. D*ck. Frightening ?
Induction of hibernation has a much more practical purpose here on earth -- organ transplant.
If we could force an ex-planted organ into hibernation, then we wouldn't have to rush around trying to get organs into people within 6-12 hrs (it is different for each organ type).
Hiberation may also inhibit the reperfusion injury that often complicates transplant as well.
That's just the obvious use of medical hiberation. We already know that somebody can not be declared dead until they are "cold and dead." This is because the many cases of people appearing to be brain dead --especially children-- who have a complete recovery after warming. (So if you are going to drown, please do so in a very cold lake.)
Imagine the day when people who are dying at home get placed into hiberation until they can be brought to the hospital and worked up. Instead of blindly trying treatments in the field, one could slow down the dying process until a cause of injury is found.
It has always amazed me that so many animals hiberate, but we can figure out how to translate that into humans.
I've got a a better idea!
MAKE THE SPACE SHUTTLE GO FASTER.
I'm such a genius, NASA should hire me.
How are they gonna get a brand-new, untried vehicle to run for a six-month trip each way, without multiple someones keeping an eye on things?
All they have to do is have some kind of automated assistant to keep an eye on things!
They could call it the Hybernation Assistance Lifeline.
It could do things like keep the radio antenna lined up with Earth, and manage the opening and closing of the pod bay doors.
'Manned missions beyond the Moon are no longer wild dreams. NASA plans a manned mission to Mars before 2020.'
Manned missions to Mars are right up there with moon bases and flying cars in the "I've heard that one before" stakes. Wake me when they have the spacecraft on the launch pad. I won't hold my breath.
thank you fellow communist in the moderator ranks for marking parent post as overrated. Any post mocking John Kerry that is rated over 0 is overrated.
I've always wondered why they dont send people who are use to sitting in a chair for months at a time. ;)
I know after I get HL2 I wont be on Slashdot for at least a week!
Do the astronauts choose to become the Tetris Master or Mario 64 speed record holder?
Decisions decisions...
I'd rather see investment towards the Asteroid Belt and Lagrange point colonization
I am repeatedly hearing... "Daaaaiisy..... Daaaiisy...."
Google Cache.
And if you include images they would never run out of pr0n either.
Make sure to send the astronauts with plenty of firepower. Chainguns, rocket launchers, armor and a chainsaw would be plenty enough to keep those aliens at bay. Don't let the spam get to the astronauts too. They'd be pretty pissed off at that.
We've already checked the fast and cheap boxes for this project. Do we really want to tempt the relilability demons by going with something like hibernation? We have plenty of experience with people being confined in small spaces, with little human contact and nothing to do. They're called supermax prisons.
astronauts would face the challenge of living in a confined space with not much to do for an extremely long period.
Sounds like my teenage years. I managed to make it!
So they are trying to make a human hibernate for 3 years? I wonder if 4 years is possible.
If Bush wins, I want to sleep right through it.
http://brandonbloom.name
Whoever modded the parent down obviously never saw the first episode of Lost in Space, or (luckily for them,) the movie of the same name.
It must be asked. Why go to Mars? For no good reason really.
,work would have to be done on a self-sustaining space city/shuttle/satelite.
Humans must determine why we are attempting to establish a means to which sustained, and maybe even permanent, life be possible away from home(earth).
The answer is obviously to preserve the race. We need to be able to pack the bags, run out the back door, and say goodbye and never come back.
So, why then just see if we can go to Mars ? We need to have the best scientists, funded by the wealthiest entities, researching possible ways to live in space for indefinite amounts of time. Maybe a colony on another satelite would be the best first step. And that colony would have to be able to provide for it's new inhabitants with enough resources to sustain us and power our machinery. This way, by having effectively settled in two relatively distinct locations of space, we have increased our chances of survival two fold.
But it's not enough. We would need to accomplish the same goals as often as possible. Also
Oh well. Just my opinion. Not that it really matters.
I agree with all of your points but there are two more important hurdles that I believe will prevent a manned mission to Mars during my lifetime. (I am 20 years old.)
Gravity: We need gravity to keep our muscle mass and bones strong. Considering these astronauts will experience no gravity for six months each way I do not see how this will be possible. Life on the space station for this period of time can not be used as evidence that it is possible to for extended hibernation space travel. Astronauts on the space station spend hours each day exercising in order to delay the breakdown of muscle and bone. I don't think a manned mission to Mars will be possible until we can "create" gravity.
Money: If NASA continues to receive the funding it is currently getting, we will never go to Mars or even return to the Moon. Congress does not see the purpose of space travel. Until we are forced to go to Mars (mass extinction due to astroid, global warming, ect, ect, ect.) this will not change. I don't think any huge earth changing events will happen during my lifetime that will force us to pack up and move.
Sleeping it off sounds like a great idea, if only muscle loss could be stopped during the rest period. Astronauts already have a hard enough time keeping in shape for their ride home when they're awake.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Zzzzz.....
Great idea - perhaps we can call these newly altered people 'Titans' and they could be put in charge of our colony planets. Actually, no - I for one don't welcome our cymek-slashdot overlords ;)
But what prevents the chimpanzee from taking one of the human's hibernation chambers?
We just leaned a few days ago on Slashdot about the potential of nuclear rocket engines that could greatly reduce the transit time between Earth and Mars from ~9 months to ~7 weeks. Reducing the transit time solves a great many more problems that teaching astronauts how to hibernate IMHO.
BTM
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
"And the monkey flips the switch..."
I wonder what the dreams would be like in extended Hibernation. I get some crazy dreams sometimes, what happens when you don't wake up for a few weeks?
I wonder what stage of sleep you would be in, REM sleep? Or would it be a differege stage that has fewer dreams?
I'm really curious what the studies will find out about dreams in Hiberantion.
Brandon Petersen
Get Firefox!
Research? Have you ever heard the man speak? You think we'll need to induce sleep chemically?!
"As Americans we are absolutely united, all of us -- there are no Democrats, there are no Republicans -- as Americans, we are united in our determination..."
And I've blacked out.
cos frankly i think it's unlikely, especially by 2020 -
How important will computer games be for mars-onauts?
By 2020 there should be some pretty damn good games - very long, very involving, very time consuming.
Add to that about 30 years worth of "retro gaming"
That should keep them busy for long enough..
I suppose you could even combine them with the exercise they would have to do - as the eyetoy and donkey-konga style games do..
I'm curious to know the source the submitter had in mind when he stated that NASA is planning a manned mission to Mars before 2020. I have not seen anything like that come out of NASA.
The President's roadmap they recently adopted only had manned missions to the moon resuming by 2020.
We're talking about a Mars voyage. The only acceptable game is Doom.
"And there I was, with only a shotgun and some ammo, and these demons were pouring out of a dimensional gate to hell!"
Seriously. Isn't that what contributed to Christofer Reeve's death.
The worst part is that I think, all or most of these things are only 50 or 80 years away, which means, I have a chance to see them, but will likely be too old to take advantage of them...
The vicious German hordes overran the Roman Empire weakened by Christianity and delayed our progress by at least 500 years :-( (Oh, I don't blame them, they had their reasons, but still...)
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I belive that we will someday be able to hybernate, only that scientists need to figure out how to do it. Of course we can, if mammals and other animals can do it, we can too. It would diffently help our space flights! -Pat
Free Flat Screens!
Pat
Perhaps there will be less hibernating time necessary, but this method wouldn't be controversial if the mission were to the nearest star...
That's right, make it a one-way trip! Without the return leg, it would be substantially less expensive. And of course, yes, only send those of sound mind who freely decide to go, knowing they won't come back, at least not on this ship.* For that matter, it might even be less expensive to also send unpersonned supply ships every few months to keep them alive and exploring indefinitely than to do just one 'standard' round trip mission. The amount learned about Mars would certainly be much greater with a permanent base for the first mission than with several round trips in the same timeframe.
* How to handle the public reaction, or whether to tell the public the truth, and other such PR stuff is beyond the scope of this comment.
Well, here goes my karma...
Tag lost or not installed.
You've given yourself away. Don't be surprised if you are occasionally modded down for no reason now...
LOL MIAMI IS TEH LOSRE!
Bunch of know nothing idiots!
All this time and tax payer money spent on this crap and they still don't have dilithium crystals! How the hell do we expect to get anywhere without dilithium?!?
The US will be bankrupt by 2020.
I wonder if when human beings are granted say an infinite lifespan through technology that the government will start regulating our lifespan, say we can only live a maximum of 200 years before our steel bodies have to be recycled and they delete us and place someone new in them
we could do the research, but without an obvious need such as space flight creates, we generally wouldn't
Hibernation has been of interest to physiologists, medical doctors, and biologists for a long time because it has lots of practical applications. Claiming that its "origin" is related to manned space travel is false advertising.
Kubrick warned us against such things years ago...
give them a couple big screen TVs with computers and or xboxes/ps2s/gcs hooked up for some LAN gaming and of course set up a dedicated satellite to get the latest /. news!
Gee, hibernation. That's pretty simple. Filter out 90% of the astronut's thyroid hormones from their blood while they're asleep. Wonder how many millions they'll spend on this anyway. When they awake, it'll be just like they drove to the West Coast and back. Better yet, forget them and send truck drivers.
I think the better choice is to simply keep them awake and transmit footage back to earth. "See what happens when 7 astronauts on the way to mars stop being nice, and start being real!"
Instead of tweaking a human to be able to hibernate, just tweak a bear to have the brains to be able to carry out the mission. By the time these missions roll around brain augmentation might be at at sufficient level.
Am I crazy? No, I'm mostly joking. But, ah, you know, think outside of the box, and Go Bears!
You may not realize it, but there's a world of difference between sitting in your house as opposed to really being isolated. If you were to be ill or injured, you could seek a doctor. If something broke down, you could call a handyman. If the pizza and soda guy had delivery problems, you could get food elsewhere.
In space, you can do none of those things. Even if you don't need them, the knowledge that you can't get them is a heavy burden. If the food supply broke down, you would starve and it'd be longer to deliver emergency rations to you than the most obscure third world country on earth. Hell, your air supply could break down and you'd suffocate.
In addition, putting a bunch of introverts together will quickly lead to disaster, as they are forced to live on top of eachother in cramped quarters. Nowhere to be alone. Nowhere to go. Every annoying characteristic of your co-travelers, you will have to deal with.
For this sort of mission, you would want people that are more like polar scientists, people who've had to endure real isolation. If you want to test your suggestion, a polar base is where you'd send them. I bet most wouldn't last a month.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Ever seen a FPSer go batshit over Latency?
Immagine a geek with no social skills. Now immagine the ping from mars.
NASA plans a manned mission to Mars before 2020
We'll just bypass Bush's strong support for this program, of course.
Not a political statement, just a fact.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
of course, if they did find a cure, the drug companies would go broke and wouldn't be able to snort all that cocaine and poke all those genetically inferior blue-eyed re-tards.
hopefully one day some gunea pig of their's will go ape-sh-i-t and sit out front of the CEO's house with an ak-47 and mistake them for rabbits.
Just wishful thinking though.
Hey,. we can all dream, can't we?
I'm a lot more interested in great new nuclear propulsion technologies than figuring out some way to pass the time.
Once we have a quick round-trip propulsion system, routine flights might be possible, opening up all kinds of possibilities.
Also, if we have a powerful propulsion system, it does start opening up even more far-flung expeditions, like unmanned long-term trips outside the solar system even.
Of course, IANARS.
Give 'em a deck of cards, a PS2 with a shitload of games, enough booze to last the trip there and back, and make sure the gender distribution is about even.
Oh, yeah. Cable TV.
we OBVIOUSLY dont have the tech to go to mars yet - lets just get ourselves back in orbit first -- then concentrate on the moon --- maybe in 2050 we can start thinking of human mars missions. What we need more than anything before we start sending humans past lunar orbit is a whole new propulsion system. right now these rovers we send there are doing just fine.
If the problem is not to have the astronauts go insane with boredom en route to Mars, may I suggest that computer games could go a long way towards this goal?
I've gone for days at a time, waking up, getting on my computer until I have to go to sleep, then sleeping and doing it again. I could porbably do it for months at a time if I had to. I could, in THEORY, even take short breaks to "do astronaut stuff" like checking systems and what not.
If NASA wants to fund some kind of "lock me in a room and play games" challenge, I'll participate. ; -)
wont it be nice to have a president whose term in office you can sleep through?
But wait until you see the shit you just may wake up to
Table-ized A.I.
Planetary Exploration requires a new type of human being, one that is engineered cutting across our acceptable bounds of what is ethical, simply because we are not the best subjects to explore new worlds we consume to much food, water and oxygen. We lack the efficiency necessary for such endeavors, ultimately the combination of genetic engineering, surgical replacement of tissue with synthetic and cybernetic components, and pyschological conditioning as well as neural implants that ellicit certain behavior to ensure the stability of the individual. Until we are ready to change humanity to fit the task at hand we are best left in the crib.
Allen Steele wrote about that...
The Days Between
cheers
front
i think people also forget that artificial gravity on a spacecraft is easy because of simple physics. for those of you who've seen the newer planet of the apes, think of that ship. when you have a cylinder rotating, it feels as if there is a force pulling you away from the center, assuming that you rotate with the body. this means that, if the spaceship was hollow and big enough to stand at least one human up 2.5 times [[headroom+height]x2] there would be an artificial force that the human would have to fight to move around. simple simulated gravity. thanks physics!
too bad it doesn't apply to space travel...
All the torrents you could want.
Okay, there's the psychological impact of being locked up for several months or years at a time, but what about the psychological impact of being asleep for several months or years at a time? "Imagine a nightmare you could never wake up from..." And not only would you be asleep, but you'd be asleep *and weightless*, so your body will be freaking out too.
It only took about 7 months for the Mars Rovers to reach Mars, why would it take several years for a manned probe to reach there?
...some fake jobs to do. A computer panel full of buttons that have to be pushed in sequence daily or the whole ship explodes. Add to that some actual physical exertion (like removing axle rods from somewhere that are rusty) at random intervals as well. Keep it quiet so only the scientists and some engineers know what's up.
:)
Yeah, give the astronauts lots of fake jobs which will then lead to fake drama as someone forgets to pull rod 14 on schedule and the core threatens meltdown. Tie it in to emergency evac announcements and lots of flashing lights. I could see this being profitable from a television standpoint as well. That in turn will help fund the mission or a future mission like it.
Think about it this way: if you're always threatened by disaster but always avert it just in the nick of time, you never know if it's true or not. The astronauts will never wise up.
Just don't call the capsule computer HAL9000
Well hibernating is all fine and dandy but, what about the nasty solar radiation the sun likes to spit out in random intervals. Seems like a bad idea to be sleeping while the potiential of such large doses of radiation are possible. It's not like they can radio down to engineering and have Scotty divert all power to the shields while they are sleeping.
Hmm, rotating ring system for artificial gravity, hybernating astronauts... all we need now is a hyper intelligent computer that can't lie to run the ship and we can go to saturn!
Imagine what would happen if you got exploited and your nav computer started executing arbitary malicious code.
mmmmm.... malicious....
Why do we waste so much money killing each other when we could be furthering the human race?
Im not a earth nut or anything... but I dont understand why we can't focus more in improving our planet before we start putting so much time and effort getting to another. Life really does resemble art. Will we, like the aliens in Indepence Day, just live here until the planet is destroryed them move on to Mars?
Ever seen anyone after a 3-month COMA? The patient is not much more than a skeleton. Maybe if we send REAL, FAT crewmembers ? Will that help preserve muscle mass? Who wants to be the guinea^H^H^H^H^H^Hsucker^H^H^H^H^H^Htester?
No hibernation in space for me; I don't want to die in my sleep... I wish to be conscious at the conclusion of my life!
On a risky mission where I could die in space, I'd rest easier thinking I would at least wake up for my own death. I would not enter hibernation knowing I might never wake up.
The "solitary confinement" aspect does not bother me. I rather enjoy confined spaces; they're like wombs to me. As a Vipassana meditator, I will never run out of things to learn about, even in solitary.
As for reducing the metabolic overhead, Yogis can do this. I suspect this is something I could learn with proper training.
If they find someone similar to me for the mission, all the complications of hibernation can be dispensed with.
How about designing faster and yet more fuel efficient propulsion systems so the trip to somewhere even as close as Mars doesn't take so damn long in the first place. I mean, it may sound like science fiction but maybe we need to actually design space travel vehicles more like the ones you see in sci-fi movies like Aliens before we start planning to fly all over the solar system, galaxy, universe, etc. Sure, it'd be way cool to watch footage of people walking around on Mars but it'd be even cooler if it didn't take them forever to get there and they weren't flying there in some ship designed with our current technology that's prone to blowing up due to things like O rings or broken fuel lines. I think maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves. That's all.
We've been hearing stories about sustainable living on Mars for awhile now, and now hibernating to Mars. Until it happens right here on Earth, it's vaporware. Nobody's hibernating, and nobody has built a successful closed-system biosphere. Send three Martianauts off to Mars for 5 years anytime in the next 15, and someone will win the pool because their chosen date will be the closest to when the last one breathing decides to take the white pill.
Record deficits, robots already exploring... c'mon people, get realistic. Our hundreds of billions of dollars are going toward Roman Empire fantasies and paying off the costs of occupying other countries, not manned space travel.
OK, 90% of the objections seem to be about muscle atrophy and having no one on-board keeping an eye on things. Here's my idea of an easy fix, ala 2001 - take shifts.
A Mars trip has generally been planned for 4-5 crew members. If its 90 day trip to get to and from the planet, one person at any time is out of hibernation for 15-18 days. That person does the "housekeeping" on board and gets plenty of exercise. Problem solved. Someone is watching the ship at all times, and everyone gets exercise in-trip to maintain muscle mass lost in hibernation.
Say there's a four-person crew. The pilot/commander takes the first wake watch, and also the last wake watch to recover from the longest hibernation period. There would be five watches of 18 days (15 days if 5 person crew.)
Voila.
made of wood?!
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
As I recall the idea of just spin the spacecraft and get free gravity has been more or less dropped specifically because we have almost no experience in engineering such things.
I don't simply mean 'keeping the antenna aligned' type stuff. I mean the actual physics/mechanics of this large spinning body that we don't have any experience in building and how to keep it from tearing itsself apart.
So is the whole spinning-for-gravity thing real, or a bit of sci-fi we always would become real science? Anybody actually qualified care to chime in on this?? Like I said, I've seen stuff that NASA specifically abandoned that type of gravity.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.