Time travel by freezing the body

[MirceaKitsune]

Time travel is a fascinating idea for many people... but until technology allows custom movement of a 3D object across the axis of time, it's not a possible task as we imagine it. I have however been wondering about a more likely way of doing time travel. Which wouldn't send you back to the past, but could instantly take you to the future... at least in your own perception.

 

My curiosity is if it might ever be possible to completely shut down a human body, while keeping each and every organ ready to restore functionality to. The aim would be to stop the person from needing food / water / air, keep organs from wearing out and the body from aging, and most importantly make sure the person perceives no time flow during the procedure... of course after they are awake. To describe the idea as a simplified example: The person would simply walk into a cabin, feel themselves fall into some sort of sleep, then wake up after what feels like 5 minutes... but is actually 5 years later. In reality of course, the person's body is kept in the device for 5 years, during which the apparatus constantly does the procedures it needs to in order to keep the body in the required state.

 

Of course this would be a very complex and dangerous procedure, were the means for it even discovered... so it's not something I'd just go out and encourage doing. There are however reasons why the possibility still appeals to me. One is that, to put it bluntly, many people (myself included) are highly disgruntled with the state of the world and society at this day, and enjoy thinking that the future might be a better place. If there was a safe and plausible way to do this, I would like to go to sleep as usual and feel like I slept for one night, but actually wake up 10 years later the next morning.

 

Another reason why this would be fantastic is that people could go to planets that are light years away via space shuttle. Which of course would be a one way trip, and have debatable chances of survival... but brave people could still opt for it. You'd simply need a space shuttle which is able to somehow power itself for a few hundred years. When the person traveling is boarded, its body is shut down using this technology. The shuttle could then travel through space for hundreds of years, until eventually it reaches the surface of the target planet. At that stage, the shuttle would need to automatically land, as well as automatically "unfreeze" the body and awaken the person. From the astronaut's perspective, he simply goes to sleep inside a space shuttle parked in NASA's hangar, then an hour later wakes up on an alien planet hundreds of light years away... in case everything is a success that is.

 

So could this theoretically be possible? And are there any chances of it happening within our lifetime, as well as "being kept frozen for 10 years" becoming an affordable solution?

Edited October 2, 2014 by MirceaKitsune

[fiveworlds]

You mean Suspended Animation?

[MirceaKitsune]

You mean Suspended Animation?

 

Aha... yes. I heard the word before, but for some reason thought it's referring to "bullet time" effects in movies. Reading the Wikipedia article, that seems to be the right term indeed.

[Endy0816]

Artificial hibernation would be the best bet if you want to survive the process.

 

Replacing blood can work but only for a couple days max right now(last I read has been awhile). Mitochondria going haywire and physical cell damage are the main hurdles that need to be overcome. There's some forms of sugars that can limit cell damage but there is no real understanding on possible side effects at present.

[Harold Squared]

There ARE some creatures, frogs, I think, which CAN be frozen and restored to viability. Amazing and certainly worth further investigation.