The year is 2039, and you are an astronaut on your way to Mars. You’re three months into an eight-month journey, and your body is already facing an onslaught of radiation from space. In zero gravity, your bones and muscles are in danger of disappearing.
You’re not worried, because you’ll be entering your own private stasis booth. Cocooned inside, you’ll happily sleep for hours and days until you emerge refreshed and rejuvenated at your destination.
For a long time, a trope of science fiction stories, some scientists believed that human hibernation across the galaxy can one day is possible.
If it is, it will be a boon for space exploration. An astronaut consumes about 30kg (66lbs) of food and water a day. Multiply that by the estimated 16 months it would take to travel to Mars and back, and that adds up to a pretty hefty spaceship for all that life support.
Hibernating astronauts, on the other hand, do not eat or drink much, and consume little oxygen. Hibernation can save mission controllers a great deal of money, reducing the amount of food cargo needed by 75% and the size of the spacecraft required by up to one-third.
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There are also psychological factors to consider. Hibernating astronauts won’t be bored, stressed, or lonely, and less time and space will be needed to help keep them well or entertained.
“There is uncertainty about how people will respond to the impact of no longer seeing Earth as a nearby planet outside the window, and seeing only the dark outside,” said Leopold Summerer, head of the European Space Agency’s ( Esa) Advanced Concepts Team, which monitors new technologies in space. “The psychological stress it can cause is relatively unknown.”