
NASA is bringing cryosleep chambers out of fiction - evo_9
http://www.syfy.com/syfywire/nasa-is-bringing-cryosleep-chambers-out-of-fiction-and-into-science
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xevb3k
This is a big deal. Cryosleep is probably the most likely change to occur in
our lifetimes that could bring about significant social change.

Given that it slows your metabolism, I think it’s likely that we’ll be able to
extend overall lifespan. Effectively we maybe able to put people to sleep, and
have them wake up 50 years later.

Those “temporal refugees” will of course be completely out of sync with
society, and like a living message from the past.

Of all the weird sci-fi stuff, I think this is the most likely to actually
happen and the impact could be massive.

~~~
lykr0n
I think the big use case would be to skip a couple of days or a week at a
time. A week living in the real world, a week asleep. You don't miss much and
you can effectively double your lifespan.

~~~
dexterdog
Or you set a trigger with your fund manager. You put in 100K and tell him to
wake you when you have $2m (in today's dollars) or less than $50K.

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qubex
I was thinking of this today: enter stasis and set a trigger to emerge only
once one’s wealth has compounded to place them within the vaunted ”top 1%” or
leave one in cryosleep indefinitely.

~~~
dexterdog
Except so many people would do that that it might as well be a death sentence
since the cryo fees would eat away at your money faster than it could grow
compared to all of the other people in the world.

~~~
krageon
Cryo fees and compound interest are separate concepts. Just because the second
is present, doesn't mean the first one will grow. The opposite is true: When
more people want something, you scale up production (or someone else does) and
the prices (generally) go down.

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Rjevski
> the first crews to Mars may have to deal with day after day of seeing
> nothing but the star-flecked blackness of space. At least they will probably
> have wifi.

If only. TCP at those latencies will be completely unusable.

Even if you manage to “trick” TCP with a middlebox that fakes ACKs you’d still
be waiting minutes just for an HTTPS connection to establish.

~~~
pc86
The obvious solution is to download the entire internet onto the spacecraft.

Seriously though, they'll need to have some sort of non-work, non-research
activities to last the months it will take to get anywhere. You can only have
sex and play Monopoly so many times.

~~~
overcast
Stock up on movies, and books? I mean that's pretty much the daily life of
most people on this planet right now. Go to work, come home, engage in
entertainment / sex. Beyond that, they can't really expect to be able to go
outside and walk in the park. I think everyone is overestimating how much free
time these guys will have. It's not the equivalent of sitting in a prison cell
without mission responsibilities(experiments, chores, food).

~~~
monkeynotes
Exercise, books, chess, learn a language, I can think of plenty of stuff to
do. People in prison sometimes enjoy the opportunity they have to focus on
self improvement without the stress of having to make money for food/shelter.

Surely being on a craft in deep space is not that much different to being on a
nuclear sub for months and months on end, smaller I guess.

~~~
yomly
Do the subs not have internet access or comms to outside world?

~~~
adrianN
Nuclear subs predate the Internet and I suppose you also want to limit your
non-internet comm activity when sitting somewhere in the ocean waiting for a
Russian first strike.

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fpgaminer
This got me thinking about stasis pods (as opposed to the hibernation pods in
the article). When I think of stasis pods I always think of space travel. But
... now I wonder how many people on Earth would use them? I can see plenty of
people in the valley being rich enough and crazy enough to stasis themselves
so they can see the future and reap its benefits.

But maybe it's not crazy. If given the choice; would you choose to live now,
or in the future? There aren't many people I know who aren't cynical about the
present. The more I think about it, the more I wonder just how _many_ people
might do it.

But then, when would you stop? Would you wake up in 100 years, experience the
new, brighter future, only to become cynical again and jump to the next era?

What would our world be like if we were carrying around half our population in
stasis pods? all of them hopping from one era to the next, never satisfied.

Sci-fi technology always seems to provoke the most interesting human dilemmas.

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wgerard
> But maybe it's not crazy. If given the choice; would you choose to live now,
> or in the future? There aren't many people I know who aren't cynical about
> the present. The more I think about it, the more I wonder just how _many_
> people might do it.

If you're truly cynical about the present, I actually think stasis would be a
far worse option:

1) If you're really cynical about things like climate change, thermonuclear
war, etc. the future could easily be much, much worse than the present.
Imagine waking up out of stasis to find yourself in the world from "The Road".

2) If you're cynical but with a glimmer of hope, you're essentially banking on
the idea that not everyone like yourself will go into stasis. Otherwise, how
would things ever get better?

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ColanR
I've seen point 2 covered
before...[https://xkcd.com/989/](https://xkcd.com/989/)

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killjoywashere
As a physician who has submitted multiple job applications to SpaceX, I would
decline space travel if this procedure was a requirement. The TPN requirement
alone vastly more risky than just living 4 years of life in a spaceship.
Building giant centrifugal units in space for gravity simulation makes more
sense.

~~~
jessriedel
Thanks. I had a family member on TPN, and you confirmed my impression from the
docs: nutrition is hard and TPN usage is risky, especially for long-term use.
It's not like the movies.

What are the biggest risks? Or can you point us toward a more comprehensive
description?

~~~
killjoywashere
Infections are the major issue with TPN (you're basically mainlining glucose).
Keeping someone sedated for 2 weeks will significantly increased their risk of
thromboembolic disease (cooling them also increases the risk of thrombus). The
sedation meds are going to be hard on their livers, kidneys, etc. The
antibiotics necessary to prevent infections will also be hard on their livers,
possibly kidneys. This would all require management by a critical care
intensivist (anasthesiologist, pulmonologist, etc), who would escalate
problems too ... where?

You're taking astronauts and turning them into ICU patients. This seems
incredibly bad.

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neurotech1
There has been real research on this, led by Dr. Peter Rhee [0] the famous
trauma surgeon who treated former Congresswoman Gabriel Giffords after she was
critically injured.

There are various terms like "protective hypothermia"[2] used or "targeted
temperature management"[3] and these methods have been used in brain surgery
for decades. [4] Suspended animation [5] is the more publicly known term,
although often inaccurate.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_M._Rhee#Research_interes...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_M._Rhee#Research_interests)

[1] [https://www.idgconnect.com/abstract/7539/doctors-suspend-
tra...](https://www.idgconnect.com/abstract/7539/doctors-suspend-trauma-
patients-then-revive-them-back-life)

[2] [https://www.americannursetoday.com/therapeutic-
hypothermia-a...](https://www.americannursetoday.com/therapeutic-hypothermia-
after-cardiac-arrest-what-why-who-and-how/)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targeted_temperature_managemen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targeted_temperature_management)

[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_hypothermic_circulatory_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_hypothermic_circulatory_arrest)

[5]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspended_animation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspended_animation)

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cain
Source:
[https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/NIAC_Torpor_H...](https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/NIAC_Torpor_Habitat_for_Human_Stasis.pdf)

~~~
plopz
Here's where that comes from: [https://www.nasa.gov/content/torpor-inducing-
transfer-habita...](https://www.nasa.gov/content/torpor-inducing-transfer-
habitat-for-human-stasis-to-mars)

Looks like its from 2013

~~~
willidiots
This looks like a private venture that was selected - along with 11 other
ventures - for $100,000 in NASA funding back in 2013:
[https://www.nasa.gov/content/niac-2013-phase-i-and-phase-
ii-...](https://www.nasa.gov/content/niac-2013-phase-i-and-phase-ii-
selections)

Nothing more recent than 2016 on their own website for "human stasis":
[http://spaceworkseng.com/tag/human-
stasis/](http://spaceworkseng.com/tag/human-stasis/)

Why is this news?

~~~
sgtmas2006
Somebody wanted it to be.

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jaytaylor
Since presumably they won't be exercising while in cryo sleep, how will the
astronauts loss of bone and muscle mass while in zero-g be addressed?

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WalterBright
> At least they will probably have wifi.

These days it will be practical to include an enormous reading library.

