Super-space-sleep to Mars and back

NASA, China and SpaceX are all competing on getting people to Mars before year 2040. Who succeed's might depend on who can make humans best use minimal resources on the way there (and back again, we hope).

If people (astronauts, that is) could just sleep! Then we could cut up to 60 percent of weight on the spaceships needed for the looong journey. And - we might be on our way. Thanks to a very sleepy squirrel.

We are talking about the Arctic ground squirrel, that hibernating for up to eight months of the year. During that span, the animal's internal temperature falls to below 27 degrees Fahrenheit, literally as cold as ice. Its brain waves become so faint that they're nearly impossible to detect, and its heart beats as little as once per minute. Yet the squirrel remains very much alive. And when spring comes, it can elevate its temperature back to 98.6 degrees in a couple of hours. Voilá!

University of Alaska's researcher Kelly Drew had been researching the Arctic ground squirrel, the most extreme hibernator on the planet, for decades. And now she might be closer than ever to a major breakthrough—a vital first step toward giving humans the power to turn themselves off and on at will.

Unfortunately for the engineers trying to get humans to the Red Planet, we're a pretty high-maintenance species. As large endotherms with active brains, we burn through copious amounts of food, water, and oxygen in our daily quest to survive. All that consumption makes it extra hard to design a spacecraft light enough to reach—and eventually return from—a planet some 140 million miles from our own. Based on the eating habits of the astronauts aboard the International Space Station, for example, a crew of four will need at least 11 tons of food to complete an 1,100-day mission to Mars and back. Those meals alone would weigh nearly 10 times more than the entire Perseverance rover, the biggest payload ever to reach the Martian surface. Add in all the other life-support essentials, to say nothing of the engines and the tools necessary to set up camp, and the weight of a fully fueled Mars-bound ship could easily exceed 330 tons as it departs Earth's atmosphere—more than two fully grown blue whales. It's nearly impossible to see how a vessel that massive could generate the power necessary for its entire round-trip journey. Source: wired.com

And now: There are, after all, scores of species that go torpid every winter, drifting into an unconscious state that drastically squelches their bodies' cravings for food and air. When they rapidly whirr back to life in spring, these creatures show no signs of suffering from muscle atrophy, malnourishment, or other ailments that might be expected to stem from lengthy spells of idleness. So scientists suspect there might be useful wisdom to be gleaned from understanding how such animals (like the Arctic ground squirrel) switch into low-power mode when their environments turn harsh.

There is a community of hibernation researchers in the world, scientists devoted to studying the bears, bats, and lemurs for whom regular torpor is a fundamental aspect of existence. In recent years, these researchers have been piecing together the molecular changes that occur when certain species ratchet down their metabolism. And since so many hibernators are our close genomic cousins, there is good reason to believe that we can tweak our brains and bodies to mimic what they do.

Before the magic deadline year for Mars travels - 2040 - there might be a way for humans to hibernate for month too. Like in the movies.

And yes: Once again science fiction culture leads the way for real world science. Hibernation pods, or the?hibernaculum, is a personalized hibernation chamber that induces sleep or suspended animation. They are first seen on the Discovery?in the2001: A Space Odyssey film.

The word?hibernaculum?is not used in the 2001 novel, but appears later in Arthur C. Clarke's 3001: The Final Odyssey. Use of hibernation pods appear throughout Clarke’s Space Odyssey series.

Note to self: always believe your science fiction storyteller. They are usually right, however usually a little bit too early for the rest of us. Now: human hibernation.

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