This is a teaser for the next animated series I'm working on. It's an adaptation of '50 Girls 50,' a dark sci fi tale by Al Feldstein which first appeared in EC Comics' 'Weird Science' back before the world was in color. No wait, I think color was invented by then. Can't be sure. But anyway, it's something to look forward to, assuming my computer cooperates with me and the animations render.
Feldstein's '50 Girls 50' takes place on a starship during a long haul journey to a distant star. Because it's a 100 year long trip, all of the colonists are frozen in cryostasis. Of course, Feldstein wasn't the first or the last sci fi visionary to use cryostasis as a solution for keeping astronauts alive for very long space journeys. The concept was used in the movie 'Interstellar,' in 'Avatar,' and of course throughout the 'Alien' franchise, just to name a few examples. But how much of this sci fi trope is science, and how much is fiction?
First, we should differentiate between hibernation and suspended animation. The two are easy to get mixed up, but they're very different states. Hibernation is a state of prolonged inactivity and slowed metabolism. Most of us are familiar with how bears and other animals go into a hibernative state in order to survive the winter, but there are other kinds of hibernation. Some animals, like hummingbirds and some kinds of rodents, will go into hibernation for just a few hours or a day or so, when food is scarce. There's even a species of primate – a type of lemur in Madagascar – that's capable of hibernating, so it seems there's no reason why humans can't be induced to hibernate as well, under the right conditions.
In fact, there's plenty of anecdotal evidence that seems to prove this is possible in humans. For example, the strange case of Mitsutaka Uchikoshi, a Japanese man who fell into a hibernative state after he fell and broke his pelvis while hiking in the mountains during the winter, and was revived 24 days later with no ill effects despite not eating or drinking for nearly a month. NASA is even researching the idea of putting astronauts into some form of hibernation-like comatose state when they send their first manned mission to Mars, because it will drastically reduce the logistical requirements. If they can put the astronauts safely to sleep for 14 days at a time, then for a 150 day trip, they could only need as little as two weeks' worth of supplies. Not a bad idea!
Hibernation is very real; it's not science fiction at all. But hibernation can only do so much for you. You still age when you're hibernating; maybe a little bit slower than normal, but you still do. Hibernating won't help you if you're taking an interstellar voyage that lasts hundreds of years. For that, you need suspended animation. Suspended animation is exactly what it sounds like – all biological processes are stopped cold, or at least slowed down to the point where they're just barely active. When you hear stories about scientists finding ancient bacteria frozen in ice that miraculously comes back to life when it's thawed, that's suspended animation; that's what you need to do to your astronauts if you're sending them to Proxima Centauri b. The problem is, it's very tricky to put animals into suspended animation without killing them, and it's tricky to revive them from it without killing them or leaving them brain damaged, especially if it's a prolonged period of time. We still have a long way to go before this is anything more than science fiction.
There are some skeptics who expect that long term suspended animation is not a viable solution for sending people on very long space voyages. One of the more troubling reasons for this is also one you probably wouldn't expect. It turns out that the human body naturally contains small amounts of radioactive elements, like potassium-40, carbon-14, and thorium. These don't normally present a danger to us, because our cells naturally divide and die and eliminate damaged tissue. But if someone were to be put in a state of suspended animation for a long period of time – say, hundreds of years – then the internal radiation damage would just accumulate because the cells aren't dividing. So sticking interstellar travellers into cryo pods may not be the way to go.
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