Possibly huge news for your survival!
A company called Space Works Enterprises which resides in Atlanta just released a paper which outlines it's plans to have a working human stasis chamber by 2018. That's next year in case you're still writing 2016 when you write the date.
photo credit: Alien - Prometheus 2012
The process that they claim will be used in their stasis chambers has been successful when treating patients of cardiac arrest. A term called "Therapeutic Hypothermia" is used to slowly cool a patients body to around 33 degrees Celsius (91 Fahrenheit for Americans). The normal temperature for a human body is 37 Celsius (98 Fahrenheit) which is not a big difference when we talk about the freezing point of water being at 0 Celsius at sea level. What happens when a human body is cooled a few degrees is their cardiac systems (blood, air, hormones, etc.) slow down to a minimal pace which allows the human body to survive with almost zero oxygen, water, or food for a very long time. A Japanese man is said to have survived for 24 days in a hypothermic state when he fell off a mountain ledge.
link to their paper: http://spaceworkseng.com/a-feasible-near-term-approach-to-human-stasis-for-long-duration-deep-space-missions/
There is no real life evidence of this actually working for human beings. The goal is for long-term space flight, but they can also be used for an endless number of circumstances. An example would be that you may have a severe medical condition that can not be cured currently. You would go into one of these stasis chambers for maybe a few years when a better treatment for your condition is expected to be around. Also think about the interest on your savings if you put your money away in a safe investment and waited 20 years. The point of all of this is that we are still years away from a working model for human beings since Space Works is looking to start animal testing with their first prototypes next year.
There is no discussion about one thousand year journeys to nearby stars with these things since the human body is still technically functioning at a very slow rate. This idea is probably meant for the journeys to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn where water and life may exist.
I'm hoping it becomes a working model to keep people in stasis for at least 40 years, which means we can start enacting punishments on criminals where they are locked away for that amount of time and mentally re-purposed to remove their criminal tenancies through some neural interface... or has that already been thought of? - the movie Demolition Man. I'm still waiting for the three sea shells.
photo credit: Demolition Man 1993
Let me know what you think in the comments below. Do you think this is actually going to work? and for how long will these first chambers be viable for at keeping you in stasis?
