NASA funds deep sleep research for Mars missions

[LongTomH]

Remember those cryo-sleep chambers in 2001, the Alien franchise and Avatar? Those may soon become a reality as a way to reduce the costs of sending astronauts to Mars and beyond.

If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, here’s a quick rundown. Traveling far into space is a tricky endeavor. With existing technology, traveling to a planet like Mars takes about 180 days, for example. Keeping a crew of people alive (and entertained) in space for that long isn’t hard, but it does require a lot of food, water, energy, and other supplies. This makes manned long-distance space travel extremely expensive, since hauling more supplies requires huge amounts of storage space, and thousands of additional dollars just to get it all that stuff into orbit.

In theory, suspended animation would help solve this problem. If astronauts could be placed in a deep sleep during the journey, they would require far fewer resources along the way. Instead, they could just be put to sleep at the beginning and woken back up when they arrive at their destination.

Now, with a manned mission to Mars likely in its sights, NASA has begun to explore the viability of such an idea, and has recently funded a study by Atlanta-based aerospace engineering firm SpaceWorks Enterprises to help work out the kinks in the process.

The bulk of the study revolves around placing humans in torpor — a state in which metabolic and physiological activity is drastically slowed down. To do this, the company has developed a three-stage system. Step one involves sedating the person and using a neuromuscular blockade to prevent movement, whereas step two is to physically lower the person’s body temperature by about 10 degrees farenheit, thereby reducing cellular activity and metabolic rate by around 50 to 70 percent. This is achieved with the help of cooling pads and a nasally-inhaled coolant that lowers the subject’s temperature from the inside out. Then, once in torpor, the subject is hooked into an intravenous drip that supplies their body with all the nutrients needed to keep them alive.

Using these methods, SpaceWorks has reportedly managed to keep a person in stasis for a week — an impressive feat, but even so, there’s still much work to be done before the technology is ready for primetime. In addition to extending the length of the stasis period, the company has a handful of other hurdles to overcome. The potential onset of pneumonia, muscle atrophy, and bone loss have yet to be addressed; and the long term-effects of stasis on human organs is still largely unknown. SpaceWorks still has a long road ahead of it, but with a few more years of research, it’s not unreasonable to think that suspended animation, cryostasis, torpor –whatever you want to call it– might finally bring a manned mission to Mars within reach.

There are some exciting possibilities here for outer-solar system and interstellar missions (ala Avatar)

[Fred Sanders]

1. Until we get something that has enough speed to get to Mars in less than month, this could be

the back up plan if we can even get to 1/10000 the speed of light.

Propulsion research is the area with the best return.

At 3:21 p.m. (EDT), (October 9, 2013) NASA'S Juno Mission spacecraft will slingshot around Earth towards Jupiter, accelerating to 25 miles per second along the way and becoming the fastest man-made object in history. A .50-caliber bullet travels at about half a mile a second, by contrast -- nowhere near the blistering speed of Juno.

[Warpy]

2. It will have to be broken by periods of activity

meaning strength training and some sort of weight bearing.

Otherwise, they'd arrive with brittle bones that wouldn't support them, atrophied muscles, and kidneys weakened by the metabolic products of both processes.

There are a lot of things they'll have to think about before they try this one. They need to consider the devastating problems caused by prolonged bed rest here on earth, from skin care to preventing contractures to the loss of muscle and bone.

[bananas]

4. Skin care could be a real problem.

Didn't superman die from bed sores?

A quick google answers my own question:
"Even Superman Couldn't Win Battle With Pressure Ulcers"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/08/060822172344.htm

[bananas]

3. Musk wants to reduce the mars trip time to 3 or 4 months

not to reduce health effects, but so the rocket can fly right back to earth while mars and earth are still close, so it can be re-used many times on commercial flights to earth orbit, reducing the cost of the mars trip a lot.

He said that the fuel cost difference between the 3-4 month fast trajectory and 6 month minimum energy trajectory wouldn't be that great.

Torpor could reduce costs further.