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."

Comments

Who gives a shit?

[Xenu Xenu Xenu]

I'd rather see investment towards the Asteroid Belt and Lagrange point colonization

Re:Just give them TV a Fridge and Chips

[mobby_6kl]

Macintosh zealot

I'm usually very afraid of Mac/Apple zealots, but I thought I was safe on this one. In this case it's just a Personal Computer, as opposed to Navigation Computer or Life Support Computer. Saying PC or Mac would make me sound like a stupid PC supporter (the last PC = "politically correct"). Also, somebody on /. was trying to prove that PC doesn't exclude Macs, and that the term was hijacked by the x86 people, but I can't find that thread right now.

Re:Just give them TV a Fridge and Chips

[Zorilla]

I agree with you on that. Nevertheless, you can always expect somebody waiting to jump on this knowing that some will assume that PC = x86.

At least the term "IBM Compatible" is long gone as a byproduct of this.

Re:Just give them TV a Fridge and Chips

[v1]

but the ping time sucks by the time you get near mars...

Re:Hibernation here on Earth.

[focitrixilous P]

If Bush wins, I want to sleep right through it.

Might not be much of a country to wake up to.

Re:Just give them TV a Fridge and Chips

[eofpi]

It can't be any slower than dialup from some infamous ISPs. Aside from not being able to play online games, the biggest problem that springs to mind is finding an IRC server that'll accept 1800 second pings