Human hibernation has made some strides recently. I think a year or so ago a Wired mag article said the only significant unsolved problem is shivering. They have a cocktail of drugs that makes hibernation possible apart from the fact that people shiver at low temps.
If they solve this, I will gladly prefer to be shipped as cargo on a sail boat or airship so long as someone tends to a heart monitor to ensure a few heartbeats per min or whatever is still happening. No more Gestappo airport security, stresses of delayed flights, screaming babies, people eating Camembert cheese within 5 meters of you. You age at like ⅓ the rate in hibernation (or something like that). I’d gladly trade a week of reduced useful lifetime in exchange for a later death (experiencing more of the future than otherwise possible). The idea of being able to easily flip the middle finger to Boeing would also be a nice perk. (#boycottBoeing)
I barely trust consumer corporations to operate airplanes. Now they also maintain a hibernation pod for each passenger? Fraught.
You trust those private systems every time you visit the hospital. It’s not ideal but I think a lot of people trust doctors and nurses more readily than they would trust Boeing not to sweep fatal flaws under the rug and cheap out on training pilots about those flaws. If that sounds strangely specific, well yes, it’s specific indeed. (check out the Boeing 737 Max fiasco if you’re not familiar)
Hibernation reduces probability of medical emergency
Also consider that you’re much less likely to have a medical emergency in hibernation. What happens now if you have a medical emergency on a 6 hour flight? You’re fucked if you need something other than CPR or basic medicine. In hibernation problems are much less likely to manifest than when your metabolic rate is normal (not counting what the stresses of air travel do to metabolic rate).
Hibernation increases survival rate if there is an issue
One of the main applications for human hibernation is actually medical emergencies. People being transported in ambulances are sometimes seconds away from death. So medics want to be able to put you on ice immediately & induce hibernation so that every second stretches to tens of seconds so they have time to get you to the hospital.
Thus your mortality rate drops if you’re hibernating on ground/sea transport as opposed to flying without hibernation.
UPDATE
Great timing! Shortly after saying you trust #Boeing with your safety more than medics, there is yet another safety scandal with the #737max.
The infrastructure and labor cost of adding hospital onto a plane ticket is an extreme step for reducing aircraft emissions.
Can I just get a train and a culture that supports it instead?
If you think the infra cost is high for putting a doctor or nurse onboard a vessel, just wait until you see the price tag for tunneling under the Atlantic or Pacific ocean.
BTW, I don’t think anyone here proposed hibernation on an airplane. The hibernation would of course be done on the slow means of transport (train, cargo ship, airship) to get people off airplanes. IOW, it’s a way to get what you’re asking for: a culture that supports ground transport.
Obstacles to getting a train culture today
The main problem with asking for a culture of train travel across very long distances /today/ is that it’s a very expensive culture (both in time and money). The trains are also a disaster in Europe administratively (different prices¹ for the same train purchased from different vendors, train tickets in Germany unbuyable unless you run their proprietary smart phone app, exclusive discounts only for app users, international rail ticketing site pushes CAPTCHAs [Belgium], GDPR-violating cookies [Germany], etc). In Belgium even a short 1½—3 hour trip is less than half the price by bus than by slow train, and the bus is about the same speed as the slow train. I’ve quit trains for these reasons.
Getting a train culture in the US is also a tall ask considering how poorly networked it is. Many major cities have no train station for passenger trains. Amtrack is the only game in town and it’s slow diesel engines. When people take an Amtrack, it’s really just for the 1-off novelty of experiencing a train.
- the EU tried to implement a policy to get consistent train pricing several years ago and that still has not happened.
Dont know where you live, but in GER most Hospitals are state owned and controlled. I wouldnt do something like full narcose in a private hospital lol.
How is hibernation related to air travel 🤔?
Picture this. Instead of fighting through an airport to get on a flight, you check in to a facility next to a trucking yard. You get put under, trucked to the nearest railyard, and transported to the nearest port. There, you get offloaded to a cargo vessel and transported to a different continent. Reverse the process to get you awake and refreshed and maybe even time zone compensated at your destination.
No air travel, no aircraft emissions.
Doesn’t sound like something I’d do, but I’d read a science fiction book that examined the implications.
That works if I have 2+ weeks in my life at my disposal for… whatever… what if I have to be there ASAP.
Well, then you fly, I guess.
I’m actually on your side, I was just answering your question based on the claims. I have my doubts regarding the technology. I have my doubts regarding its practicality for enough people to have an effect on aircraft emissions or anything else, really.
The whole thing sounds like it would be better as a writing prompt than anything like a practical solution to anything. People need to go back to writing science fiction instead of putting out stuff like this.
I actually read a science fiction story once that pondered the existence of technology like this. Their concept was to examine a society in which you were awake for only one day a week.
The whole thing sounds like it would be better as a writing prompt than anything like a practical solution to anything. People need to go back to writing science fiction instead of putting out stuff like this.
Exactly.
This is just stupid IMO, if I read this in an SF novel, I’m dropping the novel, not even reading it to the end. We have online conferences, where people don’t even need to be present in the same room, but go through all this just to travel to another place 🤨… it just feels stupid.
The barrier preventing science fiction from becoming science fact is discovery of a drug that suppresses shivering that’s compatible with the cocktail of drugs they’ve already derived for hibernation. Are you saying that’s unlikely?
Well phrased! I actually have no idea what’s likely with regard to induced hibernation, so it’s good you brought me back to what the article actually said.
In fact, I take no position on the matter because it’s not something I’ve ever been interested in following.
As for the rest of what I said, who knows. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time my initial thoughts on the utility of something proved wrong!
This might be a case of fingers running disconnected from brain… :(
I’m saying it’s stupid, even if they do discover it. No way in hell I’m going through that just to travel to another place. It’s not like we’re colonizing the galaxy with this technology, we’re going to Ibiza 🤦.
You will still be able to fly but the price will be much higher because the bigger market is in economy travel, which will eventually be people in hibernation moving along the surface.
That is probably decades from happening, at which point, I will either be dead or very old and won’t give AF about traveling all together.
You don’t need air travel if you can go into hibernation for a lengthy period on slower travel methods.
Also worth noting one of the main drives for human hibernation: nutrient/food intake is cut to like ⅙ when hibernating, so you can be shipped to Mars and that hugely weight-sensitive payload allowance can be cut down to a manageable amount. IIRC, 1 person eats 1 ton of food throughout the whole trip to Mars (3 years). That food weight is a substantial hinderance in sending people to Mars, at least in numbers.
EDIT: also consider that room + board on a cargo ship is currently ~$100/day, making it much more costly than air travel in addition to having to tolerate the length of the trip. Your cost of travel in hibernation would surely fall to more like ~$20/day, making it financially more attractive than flying.
Also worth noting one of the main drives for human hibernation: nutrient/food intake is cut to like ⅙ when hibernating, so you can be shipped to Mars and that hugely weight-sensitive payload allowance can be cut down to a manageable amount. IIRC, 1 person eats 1 ton of food throughout the whole trip to Mars (3 years). That food weight is a substantial hinderance in sending people to Mars, at least in numbers.
Space travel? Yes, that makes sense. But working on this just so we can attend a party on Ibiza… no, it doesn’t IMO.
The reason for developing this is what bothers me and makes no sense IMO.
