Will Humans EVER Being Willing to do Hibernation?

I'd be scared that I wouldn't wake up. See for example, the original 1968 movie "Planet of the Apes."

In the book, "2001," not the movie, there is a scene in which astronaut David Bowman wakes up in a suspended animation chamber. He believes at first that the mission is over and he is in Jupiter orbit, but then remembers that the mission hasn't begun yet and that he is in suspended animation training at NASA in Houston, Texas.

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@Brandon9000,

technology moves so quickly that, really, of what use would beings whose onlyskill was to be a receptacle to enable the transport of sperm and eggs in an interstellar mission (OF COURSE, if they understood that's the only reason theywere being recruited), then thatd be okay.

OR, ANOTHER PLAN (I CALL IT PLAN 9). hERE WE GENETICALLY REMOVE THE ASPECT OF neotony IN OUR NEWBORNS. wE SPEED UP THEIR MATURATION , SO THAT, ON AN INTERSTELLAR FLIGHT, WE ONLY SEND frozen eggs and sperm. At the time of arrival, the eggs and sperm are united and gestation takes place ex utero in an artificial womb. (Id say we make a mix of about 1000 indicividuals with enough genetic variation so as to promote vigor) The kids are born and raised by robotic nannies and they are raised and educated
remotely.
Thus the uses of bth biology and technology come to play. I never really liked the idea of "Sending" people in space while sleeping or in torpor. It makes no biological sense. The human body cannot operate indefinitely without nourishment. So why not (in the interests of space and weight and just common sense) send out the nuclei of our species (and other animals cause its gonna be a whole new world). The animals would be allowed to develop to term only after a few years after the babies were born and are able to NOT be food for some "Baaad" doggies

Ive been thinking about that for about as long as tonights Grimm Christmas Special

PS, Ive already used this as a kernel of plot for a short story

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@farmerman,

do you have a way of shielding the genetic material from radiation? the last thing you want to do is to get there and have your force be a bunch of mutants.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

technology moves so quickly that, really, of what use would beings whose onlyskill was to be a receptacle to enable the transport of sperm and eggs in an interstellar mission (OF COURSE, if they understood that's the only reason theywere being recruited), then thatd be okay.

OR, ANOTHER PLAN (I CALL IT PLAN 9). hERE WE GENETICALLY REMOVE THE ASPECT OF neotony IN OUR NEWBORNS. wE SPEED UP THEIR MATURATION , SO THAT, ON AN INTERSTELLAR FLIGHT, WE ONLY SEND frozen eggs and sperm. At the time of arrival, the eggs and sperm are united and gestation takes place ex utero in an artificial womb. (Id say we make a mix of about 1000 indicividuals with enough genetic variation so as to promote vigor) The kids are born and raised by robotic nannies and they are raised and educated
remotely.
Thus the uses of bth biology and technology come to play. I never really liked the idea of "Sending" people in space while sleeping or in torpor. It makes no biological sense. The human body cannot operate indefinitely without nourishment. So why not (in the interests of space and weight and just common sense) send out the nuclei of our species (and other animals cause its gonna be a whole new world). The animals would be allowed to develop to term only after a few years after the babies were born and are able to NOT be food for some "Baaad" doggies

Ive been thinking about that for about as long as tonights Grimm Christmas Special

PS, Ive already used this as a kernel of plot for a short story

I feel that a permanent human presence on the Moon or somewhere else in the solar system would be good in and of itself. Certainly there are many people who would be happy to go if they could. From a purely practical, quick payoff viewpoint, mining the asteroids would probably be worthwhile. I feel like exploration and moving outward is always good, even if the benefit isn't apparent at first.

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@hawkeye10,

Are you not aware that if adults were the crew of a space vehicle, they would need to be shielded against cosmic radiation? Have you carefully studied the important aspects of travel in space?

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

do you have a way of shielding the genetic material from radiation? the last thing you want to do is to get there and have your force be a bunch of mutants.

You've been reading too many comic books. When people are subjected to radiation, they don't mutate into the Incredible Hulk, they become very ill.

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@izzythepush,

I think shielding can be accomplished much more easily for either eggs and sperm OR frozen embryos (I prefer the gamete rather than an embryo, similar problem as a bunch of sleeping adults)

BRANDON-yeh, I think we will establish the reachable "outposts" for industry or simple colonization . Maybe, at a time when some %(c) can be attained, we will be able to get to Alpha Centauri or Proxima Cetauri . I think that space travel of a few years is still achievable by a colonization crew. BUT, that aint deep space travel.
Then, I agree, building vehicles in place and constructed in space makes much more economic sense to make sure that all the mass of the vehicle isn't wasted in merely getting up to some escape velocity.
I still feel, that for deep space travel, humans are merely an "end deposit". Stuff like instructions or new technology information can be "radioed" ahead of a spce ship to be either intercepted on route or waiting for the whole colony when it arrives. Such dqta and information will be travelling at (c) and the colony vehicle will be at a %(c).

Unless we think about these HUGE planetesimal sized space ships(Like the MOTHER SHIP in "Independence Day"), then sending people to either reproduce en route or be kept "asleep" for a thousand yeqrs is wholly impractical IMHO. The technology to protect and awaken these subjects will be an unknown until its tried(no matter how we do "Concept tests" back home we will probably never do a complete 1000 year freeze with subject)

I think that sending frozen "Gametes in Space" will eventually occur to us as an attainable, technologically solvable way to do deep space exploration.

The issue of NEOTONY (where the babies retain, until about 11 or12 anna, that "cutesy" juvenile developmental shape).
Ive looked at several populations where WORK is expected of their kids (like Amish and Mennonites), kids QUICKLY become miniature versions of their parents at 5 or so.
Wed need to futz with the genetics a bit, but I still don't see anything better than this

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@Setanta,

And I think the amount of mass and volume devoted to screening adults would be a mega problem(and, in most cases, it may be to naught anyway).

I like the robots as the crew, self aware (brrr), replicating robots who can take over ops of a ship based on decision trees and advanced artificial intelligence operating modes.

The passengers would be more like a "do it yourself human kit"

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@farmerman,

The first time I encountered the word neoteny was reading William Burroughs. Here's the rest of the quotation.

Quote:

Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole.

Make of it what you will.

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@izzythepush,

well, a tadpole is "becoming" something else, we don't metamorphose as much as we take on mature characteristics.

Im actually thinking about a mechanism to "make=it-so" for what Mr Burroughs said. Just like Arthur Clarke got credit for satellites, Mr Burroughs may get credit for interstellar travel when all he did was pen a "bumper sticker".
Making up a motto for some industry is kinda easy, getting it done and doing the deep engineering that NASA has been doing in such "Simple" missions as the Mars Rovers isn't appreciated enough because each separate part of the endeavor is not "sexy" and is based upon collaboration of huge unrelated teams of scientists , engineers and safety specialists.
Mr Burroughs entire trip to that dinosaur infested Island was scientifically bullshit but was a great read for a kid.

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@farmerman,

Wrong Burroughs, you're thinking Edgar Rice, not William.

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@izzythepush,

sorry , I thought you were talking about Edgar Rice. Im only familiar with W Burroughs ART and not his writing. I really liked some of his work as a colorist.

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@farmerman,

He is a bit of an acquired taste. There's some of his stuff on youtube. His voice is fantastic, adds an extra dimension.

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@izzythepush,

I got my fill of >beat writers" when I was younger. Nowadays I re review my library and say' What the hell was all the steam about?"

My own views on beat writers was that they were stating the fuckin obvious without punctuation. In that way I was able to justify my own writing style.
I did like Burroughs own art and some of hi collaborative stuff that was in the "Pook" collection . I know the art wasnt his but it was the closest to Heironymus Boch Id ever seen.

A side track , I must get back on the main line.

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@farmerman,

That sounds like a good idea to me--keep in mind, though,that computers, including those used by robots, would probably need to be shielded from long-term exposure to cosmic radiation.

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By the way, the long term difficulties of interstellar flight is one of the reasons i consider the Fermi paradox naïve.

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@Setanta,

sounds to me like we cant do this, and are not sure that we will ever be able to do it.

Quote:

Manned missions to planets such as Mars require extended missions that will expose astronauts to harmful radiation in the form of energetic particles from solar and galatic sources. Traditional methods for protecting spacecraft and occupants from these forms of radiation involve some configuration of a massive material shield to absorb the energy of incoming particles. For the high energy galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) that astronauts will be exposed to, these so-called passive shields are too massive to be practical and will likely produce showers of secondary radiation that could be more harmful than the GCRs themselves.

Active shields which rely on magnetic (or electric) fields to deflect energetic particles offer a potential solution to the problem. Designing a magnetic shield that is strong enough to deflect GCR particles but weak enough to not harm astronauts is a challenge. Investigating possible solutions involves a combination of electromagnetic theory, numerical analysis, engineering practicality, and an astronaut's sense of exploration.

http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/~d76205x/research/Shielding/

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@Setanta,

there will come a time that humanity will either resign itself to the fact that our sun is dying and wed better prepare ourselves for the inevitable end OR get outta Dodge.
"getting out" will probably give us a few million years to plan and develop the technology. Im not a big believer in "Warping as a means of travel because , even a Warp factor 10 is only 10 times the speed of light and there would still be an insurmountable time/space between stations.

I was allways worried about achieving %(c) velocities. There would be a huge problem of wacking into some chunk of space debris or small planetoid . Dring the bus would be nerve wracking (IMHO).
Of course, if we have technology tht can birth and raise new colonists, we will probably have a good crash avoidance system in our space vehicles.

NOW, what would powerall this technology? induction drive?

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

there will come a time that humanity will either resign itself to the fact that our sun is dying and wed better prepare ourselves for the inevitable end OR get outta Dodge.
"getting out" will probably give us a few million years to plan and develop the technology. Im not a big believer in "Warping as a means of travel because , even a Warp factor 10 is only 10 times the speed of light and there would still be an insurmountable time/space between stations....

It will be many hundreds of millions of years before the sun's luminosity increases enough to cause significant terrestrial problems, much less before it turns into a red giant, and that is far enough out that I don't feel like I have to take it into account in my plans.

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Will Humans EVER Being Willing to do Hibernation?

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