Considering that astronauts on a mission to Mars will face more than 250 days of confinement, stress and boredom, an extra bag of peanuts isn't likely to cut it. So Mayo Clinic has been asked to study whether medically induced hypothermia might help them endure the medical and logistical rigors of a journey that NASA hopes to launch less than two decades from now.
Anxiety, depression and personal conflict are just a few of the risks that would face astronauts who remained fully conscious in a cramped craft for a journey of that duration.
But cooling them into a hibernation-like state could make the trip passable, said Dr. Matthew Kumar, an anesthesiologist with Mayo's Aeromedical Unit. And it would simplify and shrink the design of their spacecraft.
"You don't have to have too many TVs," Kumar said in a recent interview. "You don't have to have too many stoves or microwaves."
Popular culture — from the 2016 movie "Passengers" to the video game "Halo" — has long drawn on the idea of cocooning astronauts for prolonged space voyages. But its emergence from science fiction to reality could solve some of the greatest challenges of manned deep space flights now contemplated by NASA, including the health of the crew and the weight of the craft, according to John Bradford, chief operating officer of SpaceWorks, the private flight company working with NASA and Mayo.
For instance, lowering astronauts' body temperatures from 98.6 degrees to 92 degrees would slow their metabolisms, so the spacecraft wouldn't have to carry as much food or oxygen.
"When we add an extra pound of mass to support the crew, the habitat grows in mass, which grows the amount of propellant needed for the mission, which then grows the size and thrust level of the engines required, etc.," Bradford said. "Thus, there is a lot of interest and focus on approaches that can reduce system mass and power."
Solving that challenge through induced hypothermia would be the next leap for a Mayo program that has a 75-year history of aerospace medicine. It was Mayo scientists, for example, that designed once top-secret innovations such as the G-suit, which helped jet pilots endure gravitational forces in flight.