The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
Go to topicThank you for liking
You have already liked this page, you can only like it once!
Human hibernation has been recommended as a key ‘enabling technology’ for space. Once the preserve of science fiction, hibernation or ‘suspended animation’ may one day become an important enabler of deep space travel.
Hibernation would take place in small individual pods that would double as cabins while the crew are awake.
The assumption is that a drug would be administered to induce ‘torpor’ – the term for the hibernating state. Like hibernating animals, the astronauts would be expected to acquire extra body fat in advance of torpor. Their soft-shell pods would be darkened and their temperature greatly reduced to cool their occupants during a projected 180-day Earth-Mars cruise.
Radiation exposure from high-energy particles is a key hazard of deep space travel, but because the hibernating crew will be spending so much time in their hibernation pods, then shielding – such as water containers – could be concentrated around them.