One of the biggest concerns surrounding deep-space travel is the “footprint” that’s made by each human member of a mission’s crew, including consumables like food and water, space to move around, electricity, and protection from solar radiation. While all of those things can be provided for, the cost of getting the required systems and architecture into orbit is enormously expensive.
One solution to the human footprint problem has been the oft-explored idea of hibernation. In most incarnations this sci-fi staple sees members of a crew ushered into hibernation pods where their bodies are put into a form of suspended animation only to awake shortly before their mission is to commence. According to a plan being developed by NASA and the private firm SpaceWorks, an experimental concept called RhinoChill would see crew members enter induced sleep by having invasive tubes placed in their nasal cavities and cooling liquid funneled into the base of their brains. Once firmly in the grasp of their chemical nap robots would be employed to feed and exercise the bodies of a crew, ensuring no one wakes from their sleep atrophied.
Though hibernation seems like a ludicrous concept, particularly since our current space efforts revolve around spruced up mid-century tech, the benefits of such a system could be enormous. Aside from the space and money they would conserve hibernation systems could eliminate some of the psychological effects associated with long-term space flight.
Regardless of its benefits, though, any type of hibernation technology is still far from a reality. But you’ve got to hand it to the people at NASA, regardless of shrinking budgets and the wandering objectives of revolving administrations, the Agency is always hard at work producing working plans for our species’ most ambitious projects – even before they’re considered realistic.
Image Courtesy of SpaceWorks