Join Me

Only one technology is missing to allow actual star travel: revivable cryopreservation. When we can freeze people without damage and revive them decades later then centuries long voyages to other star systems become possible (and desirable as an insurance policy for our species). Accelerated out of the solar system by beam propulsion to some percentage of the speed of light the starship would arrive hundreds of years later in some nearby system and likely used nuclear pulse devices in combination with other techniques to slow back down. Since humans have radioactive particles present in their bodies causing damage and some damage from outside radiation occurs even in a massively shielded environment, the passengers would likely be revived after a certain period, perhaps a decade or two, for a short period, perhaps a few months, to repair the damage to their DNA.

There are processes that use different techniques to prevent ice crystal formation during freezing and this is the major problem with cryopreservation so it is not the technical challenge that is widely assumed. Interestingly, the societal disruption from such a discovery would change the nature of human life profoundly and be the most significant event in human history. Some monkey or dog is revived without damage after being frozen in a lab one day, maybe tomorrow, and the world would suddenly change. Nobody would allow their loved ones to die when they could be frozen until the technology to reverse aging becomes available. It would immediately become “The Great Rescue” as the world mobilized to save those close to death. As soon as the race was over and the pipeline into cold storage was created would come “The Great Race” to reverse aging. As hundreds of thousands, and within a few years, tens of millions are placed in storage, vast resources would be focused on reversing aging. And when that problem was solved next would come star travel.

This is the bright future that initially attracted me to space travel: the only practical way to send people to another star is by way of suspended animation. And that technology would profoundly change humankind simply because we love others and will not let them die.

So I am looking for others who might like to join me in popularizing and promoting this path. Please comment as I have reopened the comments section.