Could We Hibernate All the Way to Mars?

Space travel takes a really long time. And if we ever want to visit  a planet other than Earth, we’re going to need a way  to keep people physically and mentally healthy for those long-haul trips.

To get around this problem,  science fiction writers sometimes place their fictional spacefarers in some sort of stasis or suspended animation.

And while we don’t have that –  yet – some researchers see it as the most viable way to get  us from place to place in space.

They’re taking inspiration from a natural process that occurs in other animals: hibernation.

But to pull it off, they’ll  need to figure out how to get around the ways our own bodies  keep themselves running.

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Even travelling to other planets within our solar system would take months or years.

In the best-case scenario,  with our current technology, a trip to Mars would take about 7 months each way.

Supporting astronauts on such lengthy missions will require lots of supplies.

They’ll need to bring their own food, water, air and medical equipment.

That’s a lot of luggage to load onto your spaceship, but not a lot of space.

So to conserve some of these limited resources, some researchers are looking for ways to mimic hibernation in humans.

During periods where resources are scarce, some animals cope by slowing their metabolism.

That way, they don’t consume  as much of, well, anything.

They don’t breathe as often,  their body temperatures drop, and they don’t need to eat  or drink or poop as much.