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Is human hibernation possible? Can we do it long enough to survive a long-duration spaceflight journey and wake up again on the other side?
[...] medicine is already playing around with human hibernation to improve people's chances to survive heart attacks and strokes. The current state of this technology is really promising.
They use a technique called therapeutic hypothermia, which lowers the temperature of a person by a few degrees. They can use ice packs or coolers, and doctors have even tried pumping a cooled saline solution through the circulatory system. With the lowered temperature, a human's metabolism decreases and they fall unconscious into a torpor.
But the trick is to not make them so unconscious that they die. It's a fine line.
The results have been pretty amazing. People have been kept in this torpor state for up to 14 days, going through multiple cycles.
[...] Current plans for sending colonists to Mars would require 40 ton habitats to support 6 people on the trip. But according to SpaceWorks, you could reduce the weight down to 15 tons if you just let them sleep their way through the journey. And the savings get even better with more astronauts.
The crew probably wouldn't all sleep for the entire journey. Instead, they'd sleep in shifts for a few weeks. Taking turns to wake up, check on the status of the spacecraft and crew before returning to their cryosleep caskets.
What's the status of this now? NASA funded stage 1 of the SpaceWorks proposal, and in July, 2016 NASA moved forward with Phase 2 of the project, which will further investigate this technique for Mars missions, and how it could be used even farther out in the solar system.
[...] When humans freeze, ice crystals form in our cells, rupturing them permanently. There is one line of research that offers some hope: cryogenics. This process replaces the fluids of the human body with an antifreeze agent which doesn't form the same destructive crystals.
Scientists have successfully frozen and then unfrozen 50-milliliters (almost a quarter cup) of tissue without any damage.
Why limit therapeutic hypothermia to space travel? Use it to get through a visit with your in-laws.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @11:17PM (9 children)
What makes you think he'll last 8 years, let alone 4?
My betting is that he'll be impeached before his first term is up.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday June 24 2017, @01:39AM (6 children)
It'll be even worse if he's impeached, because then Pence would be President. Pence favors even more regressive policies, and he's actually competent unlike Trump. The last thing we need is for Trump to get impeached, unless somehow both Pence and Ryan get impeached at the same time (since Ryan is #3, though I'll admit he's probably not as bad as Pence).
So the OP's sentiment isn't wrong: even if Trump gets impeached, he's definitely going to want to sleep through the next 4 years at a minimum, and likely 8 because Presidents almost *always* get re-elected in modern history. The only exceptions I can think of are, in reverse order, Carter (1 term), Ford (was never elected for Pres or VP, lost re-election bid), LBJ (sorta: he assumed JFK's position, was re-elected once in '64, but was so unpopular in '68 he dropped out early), JFK (assassinated in 1st term), Coolidge (assumed Harding's position when he died; re-elected once for his own term, didn't want to run for a 2nd), Harding (died in his 1st term), and finally Taft, to look at only the 20-21st centuries. Out of those, only 3 actually lost their re-election bids (4 if you count LBJ who dropped out very early). Coolidge was popular and would have won if he had run again. So based on this, the odds of Trump losing his re-election are not very good.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 24 2017, @12:40PM (4 children)
Hard to believe this argument has legs.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday June 24 2017, @03:08PM (3 children)
In other words, out of the last 19 presidents, 7 didn't serve two full terms.
No, it's only 3 or 4. The other ones don't count, because we're talking about the chances for Trump getting re-elected; in those other cases the President died (JFK: assassination, Harding: sickness) or simply declined to run again (Coolidge). I guess we can count LBJ because he wanted to run again but bowed out early when it was obvious he'd lose. So 4 out of 19 (or even 4 out of 16 if we just disqualify those others) is still not very good odds if you want Trump to lose: that's at best a 25% chance he'll lose. Basically, a President needs to be *really* unpopular to lose his re-election bid, usually because the economy is doing poorly. Remember, the economy wasn't exactly booming in 2012 when Obama ran for re-election (though it was doing better than in '08) and he still won fairly easily.
Hard to believe this argument has legs.
How so? It's completely true: Pence is more regressive than Trump, and he is a competent politician unlike Trump.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 24 2017, @05:02PM (2 children)
No, it is 7. Those other reasons count. For example, if Trump should die in office early enough, he sure isn't going to be running for reelection.
Because your reasons aren't persuasive. Regressive is not necessarily bad. And Pence may not actually be more competent, should that ever be a concern.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday June 26 2017, @02:27PM (1 child)
No, it is 7. Those other reasons count. For example, if Trump should die in office early enough, he sure isn't going to be running for reelection.
No, those other reasons do not count. The question that was posed is, how likely is Trump to win a re-election? Him dying in office does not count for "not winning a re-election", it's just a totally different case that doesn't apply to the question. The whole point here is to debate if Trump is popular enough to win his re-election bid, or not. If he dies from a heart attack because he eats too much fast food, then we won't get to find out if he would have won or not, it would be moot. So NO, those other cases do not count.
Regressive is not necessarily bad.
How so? Unless you're a religious nut who hates gays, a white supremacist, you don't believe in science, or you hate poorer people, regression is always bad.
And Pence may not actually be more competent
That one I'll accept as a valid argument, but I don't think I'm wrong. Trump hasn't shown any signs of competence so far, in fact very much the opposite, with so many government positions left unfilled (like in the State Dept, and the FBI director post). Pence at least has actual experience in government, and actual experience in an executive position (governor of IN), even if his record there was terrible. Now I could be wrong of course: Trump at least, to his credit, said some things about these GOP healthcare bills that indicate he may be moderate on that issue and that he didn't like those bills, but he's always telling people what they want to hear so we'll see what he really signs (or vetoes). I'm convinced Pence would be perfectly happy to just repeal Obamacare and go back to the bad ol' days of pre-existing conditions.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 27 2017, @12:08AM
So you're saying that if Trump died tomorrow, he would be just as likely to win reelection as if he lived for the next four years? One must count relevant factors.
Further, the point of this evaluation of Trump's reelection chances is because some hypothetical snowflake wants to know whether they should wake up in four years or eight. Trump's chance of dying is quite relevant to the actual problem.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 24 2017, @03:16PM
You forgot Bush 41
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 24 2017, @02:00AM
You keep telling yourself that. I wish he'd become Caesar (celebrities already calling for assassination) for the next Augustus, the republic currently is a farce.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday June 24 2017, @03:00AM
You recon the Reps will find a viable candidate so soon?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford