Is It Possible to Hibernate for Space Travel?

People beyond the moon Sending it anywhere in space brings with it the limits of health, food and psychology logistics that we have not yet fully grasped. As you may have come across in many science fiction works, a potential solution to this problem is that people spend years in space travel. prolonged sleep state, so it’s kind of hibernate deposited; When it comes to the point to be reached, you may have come across that you have been awakened from this sleep.

Unlike faster-than-light travel and wormholes, the possibility of putting astronauts into some kind of hibernation does indeed sound possible. In fact, even the European Space Agency is conducting serious research on whether this is possible. But forcing people into a coma for space travel is unlikely, according to a new study. Doesn’t seem like a possible option.

The hibernation scenario looks like it’s just a sci-fi element

The results of a new study by three researchers from Chile reveal a mathematical barrier to realizing the potential of long-term human stasis. And that hurdle is that such a scenario might only apply to works of science fiction, in reality such a thing. cannot be means.

To explore this possibility, Roberto F. Nespolo and Carlos Mejias of the Millennium Institute for Integrative Biology and Francisco Bozinovic of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile set out to investigate the relationship between body mass and energy expenditure in hibernating animals. During their research, experts found that cells that keep cells in cold and low-oxygen conditions a minimal level of metabolism they discovered.

This meant that for relatively heavy animals like us in such a situation, the energy savings we can expect from entering a deep, hibernating-like state would be negligible. So instead of going into a hibernation-like state, we spend our days in space. sleeping normally Even if we did, it would have turned out better.

Humans need hundreds of kilograms of adipose tissue to hibernate for a long time.

The word hibernation often comes to mind as a lair retracted for months of hibernation. bear brings. While bears are dormant during the cold winter months, this dormancy is not much of the true hibernation that is true of smaller creatures such as ground squirrels and bats. unlike. In these animals, body temperature drops, metabolism decreases, and heart rate and breathing slow down. In some cases, this process reducing energy expenditure by up to 98 percenteliminating the need to hunt or forage can lift. But even in such a situation, these animals continue to burn fuel reserves for energy and lose more than a quarter of their body weight in the process.

Now imagine applying the same conditions to a human being. In such a case, this would replace humans’ daily food intake of about 12,000 kJ during the hibernation period. to several hundred kJ body fat means you will need it. If we apply hibernation to the space travel scenario, that means humans will lose about six grams of fat per day during their sleep state. This figure can reach up to two kilograms in a year.

Losing just two kilograms can be quite acceptable for a short trip within space standards. But if you are in a state of sleep as an average adult will last for decades If you’ve been dreaming of going on an interstellar journey, we have bad news for you: For that to happen, at least several hundred kilograms of adipose tissue you will need.

Hibernation does not result in huge energy savings in large animals.

This result may be due to the large numbers of hibernating animals that are human-sized or larger. less also explains that. As explained in detail in previous studies on the subject; Performing a statistical analysis among various hibernating species, the researchers found that the daily energy expenditure of hibernating animals is quite high. balanced they concluded that somehow. For example, according to this, the energy produced by a gram of tissue taken from a small mammal such as a 25 gram leaf-eared bat and the energy produced by tissue taken from an 820 gram hibernating ground squirrel. equals.

If we figured out how to hibernate as efficiently as a dormouse, we might assume that every gram of our tissue would need the same energy as every gram of them. But this situation is completely different when mammals are active. Scaling the relationship between active metabolism and mass suggests that hibernation does indeed occur in larger animals. does not save much energy shows. In other words, the total energy need we will need while hibernating will not be much different from what we need during normal resting state.

This also explains the differences in hibernation between bears and other mammals. Also, hibernation on this scale means that people need to cool their bodies down and reduce their heart rate and breathing, all of which can greatly increase our metabolism. will affect badly and dangerous changes with not very pleasant consequences. In short, forcing humans into a state of hibernation is not an unlikely solution for long space travels.