While that may be so, the reason i said i find this boring is that it ignores very basic and reasonable human realities. Setting up lasers in space, even if dependent upon solar energy, as Chumly, posits most recently, and ignoring the preposterous claim that it could be useful for long-lasting, deep space travel--would involve huge expenditures of resources and energy, especially when one considers that he's speculating on propelling a "biosphere" over interstellar distances.
Leaving aside the issue of human disunity and regional conflict, citizens expect, not unreasonably, that they can live in relatively clean cities and towns with fire protection and police services, either easy access to private transportation, or public transportation services, access to health care and access to education.
Now, factoring in human disunity and regional conflict, how does one purport that it will feasible to assemble and expend over decades the resources and energy necessary to lauch the building materials into space, build the lasers, build the biosphere, put a crew on board and launch it? Where is it going? What provision is to be made for the possibility that there will be no inhabitable or "terraformable" planet in the target star system?
The entire scenario is pie in the sky. It ignores some very serious problems even if one assumes the deep space transportation is available. In assuming it is available, it ignores the realities of providing the necessary enormous energy and resource requirement for the project.
As i pointed out a couple of pages ago, people don't like the idea of being told that they cannot accomplish something--too bad.
This is why i became bored with science fiction literature by the time i was 30. Most of it has a "wouldn't it be cool if" basis . . .
You contend that "many of our finest scientists" would deny that science fiction literature is boring? Got a good reason to say that, nevermind a definition of "many" or of "finest," and your means for determining the latter?
Solar powered spacecraft is ridiculous. So we can power a few satellites... so what? Those satellites have panels attached to them that comprise an enormous portion of their total mass. Solar cells produce relatively low energy densities. As I've pointed out, a laser to supply a ship with enough momentum to be at all useful would require millions and millions of megawatts. And I'm not even going to mention the fact that most electrical/electronic devices only work at a 50%-80% efficiency.
As for my "6000 years" to be ridiculous... Alpha Centauri is 4.3 ly from here. Of course, there is little probability that it actually contains life. So let's say we have to travel 20ly to find any life.
You're still looking at nearly 3000 years. That's a ****-ton of nuclear fuel.
Even if your "biosphere" were "nuclear powered," how exactly do you plan to propel it?
Nuclear reactors generate heat... which vaporizes water, which turns a turbine... and we get electricity.
However, this doesn't provide us a means of propulsion. We would need to eject some sort of matter, ie. rockets and exhaust and whatnot. FYI... rocket thrusters cannot run on solar power. Oh, and solar power... only works in relatively close proximity to a star.
An "Ion drive" would still require a consumable fuel from which to generate the ions. And then it has to be a fuel with a low electron affinity, else it would require more energy to split the atoms/molecules into ions than it would actually produce.
A new trick could one day put humans into a hibernation-like state without all the frigid antics of an Austin Powers movie or an Arthur C. Clarke story.
Using a natural chemical humans and other animals produce in their bodies, scientists have for the first time induced hibernation in mammals, putting mice into a state similar to suspended animation for up to six hours and then bringing them back to normal life.
The breakthrough suggests humans along with other mammals might harbor a mostly unused ability to hibernate on demand. Further research into the phenomenon could lead to medical advances, such as buying time for humans awaiting an organ transplant, scientists said.
A Norwegian skier was rescued in 1999 after being submerged in icy water for more than an hour. She had no heartbeat and her body temperature was 57 degrees Fahrenheit (normal is 98.6). She recovered.
Canadian toddler Erika Nordby wandered outside at night and nearly froze to death in 2001. She wore only a diaper and T-shirt. It was minus 11 Fahrenheit (-24 Celsius). When found, her heart had stopped beating for two hours and her body temperature was 61 degrees. She suffered severe frostbite but required no amputations and otherwise recovered.
"Understanding the connections between random instances of seemingly miraculous, unexplained survival in so-called clinically dead humans and our ability to induce - and reverse - metabolic quiescence in model organisms could have dramatic implications for medical care," Roth said. "In the end I suspect there will be clinical benefits and it will change the way medicine is practiced, because we will, in short, be able to buy patients time."
Hi USAFHokie80,
BTW the whole concept becomes much easier if a method of reduced metabolization is developed. As you know many higher mammals can hibernate for extended periods, so we know it's not out of the question. If so, resource consumption and multi generation considerations could well be lessened to a notable degree.
New Hibernation Technique Might Work on HumansQuote:A new trick could one day put humans into a hibernation-like state without all the frigid antics of an Austin Powers movie or an Arthur C. Clarke story.
Using a natural chemical humans and other animals produce in their bodies, scientists have for the first time induced hibernation in mammals, putting mice into a state similar to suspended animation for up to six hours and then bringing them back to normal life.
The breakthrough suggests humans along with other mammals might harbor a mostly unused ability to hibernate on demand. Further research into the phenomenon could lead to medical advances, such as buying time for humans awaiting an organ transplant, scientists said.
Quote:A Norwegian skier was rescued in 1999 after being submerged in icy water for more than an hour. She had no heartbeat and her body temperature was 57 degrees Fahrenheit (normal is 98.6). She recovered.
Canadian toddler Erika Nordby wandered outside at night and nearly froze to death in 2001. She wore only a diaper and T-shirt. It was minus 11 Fahrenheit (-24 Celsius). When found, her heart had stopped beating for two hours and her body temperature was 61 degrees. She suffered severe frostbite but required no amputations and otherwise recovered.
"Understanding the connections between random instances of seemingly miraculous, unexplained survival in so-called clinically dead humans and our ability to induce - and reverse - metabolic quiescence in model organisms could have dramatic implications for medical care," Roth said. "In the end I suspect there will be clinical benefits and it will change the way medicine is practiced, because we will, in short, be able to buy patients time."
Reading your responses to me, it seems like it is you who is arguing for the sake of arguing. You keep offering up these magical new technologies like a "big honkin biosphere" which have real-world basis or examples.... Case in point, you completely made up this "hot/cold differential power" system.
Case in point, you completely made up this "hot/cold differential power" system.
Thermo-electric generators convert heat directly into electricity, using the voltage generated at the junction of two different metals. The history begins in 1821 when Thomas Johann Seebeck found that an electrical current would flow in a circuit made from two dissimilar metals, with the junctions at different temperatures. This is called the Seebeck effect. Apart from power generation, it is the basis for the thermocouple, a widely used method of temperature measurement.
The voltage produced is proportional to the temperature difference between the two junctions. The proportionality constant a is called the Seebeck coefficient.
A series-connected array of thermocouples was known as a "thermopile", by analogy with the Voltaic pile, a chemical battery with the elements stacked on top of each other.The thermopile was developed by Leopoldo Nobili (1784-1835)and Macedonio Melloni (1798-1854). It was initially used for measurements of temperature and infra-red radiation, but was also rapidly put to use as a stable supply of electricity for other physics experimentation.
So I'm sitting here with my boyfriend, who just happens to be a physician... And he's explaining to me that we can put someone into a stasis, or coma... same thing. However, would require artificial respiration, less you asphyxiate on your own secretions. And then there is a 1% in 24hrs chance that you will contract pneumonia. So they frequently change your endotracheal tubes. People also very often fall victim to blood clots from prolonged immobility. Then he's telling me that people also grow tolerant to a lot of modern sedatives, so the dosage must be increased slowly to keep someone under. Now about the feeding... apparently IV feeding is only meant to be used for a few months at most because the insertions site become infected. So the IV would need to be changed. There is also a very good chance of liver failure with TPN (total parenteral nutrition). You would also need a catheter into your bladder to release urine.
Even if all this was done, and someone was successfully put into a hibernation state, this is no way would increase his life expectancy. His metabolism might have slowed down some, but thinking that he is going to live for 150years in that state is silly.
I just read the little things about the skier that survives the icy water. I wanted to point out that we already know it's more likely for someone to live if they are hypothermic than someone who sufficates at just-below normal body temp. Also, children are much more successfully recovered. But the process is poorly understod and cannot be consistantly reproduced.
A new trick could one day put humans into a hibernation-like state without all the frigid antics of an Austin Powers movie or an Arthur C. Clarke story.
Using a natural chemical humans and other animals produce in their bodies, scientists have for the first time induced hibernation in mammals, putting mice into a state similar to suspended animation for up to six hours and then bringing them back to normal life.
The breakthrough suggests humans along with other mammals might harbor a mostly unused ability to hibernate on demand. Further research into the phenomenon could lead to medical advances, such as buying time for humans awaiting an organ transplant, scientists said.
"We are, in essence, temporarily converting mice from warm-blooded to cold-blooded creatures, which is exactly the same thing that happens naturally when mammals hibernate," said lead researcher Mark Roth of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
During the induced hibernation, cells virtually stopped working, reducing the rodents' need for oxygen.
"We think this may be a latent ability that all mammals have - potentially even humans - and we're just harnessing it and turning it on and off, inducing a state of hibernation on demand," Roth said.
The results are detailed in the April 22 issue of the journal Science.
Humans already hibernate
Squirrels, bears, snakes and many other animals hibernate naturally, some more deeply than others. Humans have been known to hibernate by accident, Roth and his colleagues point out.
A Norwegian skier was rescued in 1999 after being submerged in icy water for more than an hour. She had no heartbeat and her body temperature was 57 degrees Fahrenheit (normal is 98.6). She recovered.
Canadian toddler Erika Nordby wandered outside at night and nearly froze to death in 2001. She wore only a diaper and T-shirt. It was minus 11 Fahrenheit (-24 Celsius). When found, her heart had stopped beating for two hours and her body temperature was 61 degrees. She suffered severe frostbite but required no amputations and otherwise recovered.
"Understanding the connections between random instances of seemingly miraculous, unexplained survival in so-called clinically dead humans and our ability to induce - and reverse - metabolic quiescence in model organisms could have dramatic implications for medical care," Roth said. "In the end I suspect there will be clinical benefits and it will change the way medicine is practiced, because we will, in short, be able to buy patients time."
Back from the dead?
Already there are companies that will gladly freeze the dead in hopes some way of curing and reviving them might develop in the future. The field is called cryonics. So far, no one has been brought back.
The trick with the mice didn't require freezing. Instead, the rodents breathed air laced with hydrogen sulfide, a chemical produced naturally in the bodies of humans and other animals. Within minutes, they stopped moving and soon their cell functions approached total inactivity.
Humans use hydrogen sulfide to "buffer our metabolic flexibility," Roth explained. "It's what allows our core temperature to stay at 98.6 degrees, regardless of whether we're in Alaska or Tahiti."
In extreme doses, the hydrogen sulfide is thought to bind to cells in place of oxygen. The organism's metabolism shuts down. Upon breathing normal air again, the mice "quickly regained normal function and metabolic activity with no long-term negative effects," the researchers report. They plan to test the technique on larger mammals next.
Practical uses
"Hibernating humans and space travel aside," Roth told LiveScience, "we hope that 'metabolic flexibility' can be used to enhance trauma care, surgical outcome, and organ transplant."
Among the first applications in humans might be to reduce severe fevers, when a patient is near death. Clinical trials for such a procedure could begin in five years, the scientists say.
"We believe we know how to flip the breaker on the patient's furnace," Roth said. "If they have a fever, we believe we know how to stop it on a dime."
For cancer patients, Roth speculated that temporarily eliminating oxygen dependence in healthy cells could make them less vulnerable targets to radiation and chemotherapy.
"Right now in most forms of cancer treatment we're killing off the normal cells long before we're killing off the tumor cells," he said. "By inducing metabolic hibernation in healthy tissue we'd at least level the playing field."
Eric Blackstone, a graduate research assistant in Roth's laboratory, was lead author of the journal paper.
is being researched, and you come back with the obvious and cliché drivel that (in essence agues) it can't be done right now,
