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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: 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.