NationStates Jolt Archive

I know it sounds crazy, but hear me out. I'm writing a story in which manned space flights to the stars are possible. Of course, since keeping the 150 crew on each ship awake for the long periods of time between stops (there is FTL, but sublight is still slow) would rapidly consume resources, I need an alternative.

So, 100 of the crew is anesthetized, killed somehow, their blood is extracted, and then they are frozen. When they need to be revived, they have their blood replaced and are dethawed. The procedure has been shown to work with dogs, so I figure it will be good to go in 100 years.

Anyway, I need a way to kill those crewman that won't leave any lasting effects. Should I poison them and then pump their stomachs (would the poison be absorbed by the tissue and blood?)?

First, taking you entirely out of context:
Should I poison them and then pump their stomachs?
:p
Anyway, sure why not. It's science fiction. Something along the lines of what you suggested could conceivably happen in real life one day, or perhaps it won't. The important thing is that you provide some sort of logical explanation for how it is done. For example, Star Trek used antimatter powered ships to provide an explanation for how they traveled so fast. Of course, we all know that there are some major issues with using antimatter for fuel (such as the difficulty in creating antimatter.) In the end, those issues didn't matter simply because the writers made a reasonable effort at providing a logical explanation for technological advances. My advice to you is that plot and character matter significantly more than scientific realism. Take the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, for example.

Yes .... two words: Tickle Monster

'nuff said

I failed to mention that this story only uses tech that will be feasable within 100 years. So anti-matter is a no-no.

If the poison actually kills them, then yes, it is absorbed into the blood and tissues and there would be residuals that just pumping the stomach would not cure. I don't know all the details, but there is a method of cutting the throat used for slaughter (for Kosher meat) that is considered humane and nearly painless. If your premise is that the blood is drained and then replaced, I would go with this method. Exsanguinate, suture the wounds (in vessels etc as well as skin), freeze, thaw, then eventually replace blood and thaw.

I failed to mention that this story only uses tech that will be feasable within 100 years. So anti-matter is a no-no.
Once again, my personal opinion is that it doesn't help to be overly concerned with such things when writing a science fiction story. If you want an opinion on whether your idea is feasable within the next hundred years, I'd say maybe. I'm not nearly an expert in biology, but I can say that biological sciences have been advancing spectacularly quickly in recent years. I'd say your best shot would be to explain your idea using some sort of future genetic engineering technique. Genetics has been advancing so quickly (with the cloning of mammals, the mapping of the genome and whatnot) that, within a hundred years, just about anything you could think of might be possible.

what about if you just anaethesized them, and then extracted their blood, skipping the killing bit altogether?
then there would be no need to have to cure whatever you used to kill them in the first place, and you would only have to replace the blood before defrosting

isnt there something about killing someone by injecting air into a vein?

or a nice big injection of potassium?

maybe an electric shock to the heart would stop it?

maybe you should wait for fass to come on to get a suggestion that would leave the body OK enough to be able to revive it.

i think that is one cant be fixed as of yet but a knife in a kidney is a goodway to kill someone, they tought me that at school- in science class:confused:

Slowly cool the body down, when they are unconscious. If done correctly with certain gasses in the atmosphere, the human body goes into hibanation. Could be what you are looking for.

i think that is one cant be fixed as of yet but a knife in a kidney is a goodway to kill someone, they tought me that at school- in science class:confused:
Was there homework that day?

It's sci-fi. You could implant some sort of nervous off-switch system into them that instantly shuts down their minds, can be frozen, then generates a series of electrical pulses to "reboot" them once their blood has been replaced.

I know it sounds crazy, but hear me out. I'm writing a story in which manned space flights to the stars are possible. Of course, since keeping the 150 crew on each ship awake for the long periods of time between stops (there is FTL, but sublight is still slow) would rapidly consume resources, I need an alternative.

So, 100 of the crew is anesthetized, killed somehow, their blood is extracted, and then they are frozen. When they need to be revived, they have their blood replaced and are dethawed. The procedure has been shown to work with dogs, so I figure it will be good to go in 100 years.

Anyway, I need a way to kill those crewman that won't leave any lasting effects. Should I poison them and then pump their stomachs (would the poison be absorbed by the tissue and blood?)?
Why kill them? Just lower their body temperature and place them into suspended animation, rather like hybernation of some animals.

What about carbon monoxide, they won't feel a thing, except that they'll be getting sleepy...

If you were going to do that then the process would have to be VERY fast. Maybe within 10 minutes. Otherwise brain damage begins to become a very serious issue.

What about carbon monoxide, they won't feel a thing, except that they'll be getting sleepy...That can cause permanent brain damage.

That can cause permanent brain damage.
Every way I can think of will cause permanent brain damage. It would be far easier not to kill them, and just put them in some sort of vegatative state.

My idea would be not to try and store any grown humans, rather thaw embryos about 15-20 years before arrival and get robots to look after them and teaching them what they're going to do. You could try and get their DNA to make them more recepetive or orders as well. So at the least the robot has a chance of raising the children successfully.

*snip*

A bit difficult to perform repeatedly, but I'll put it down under the "Likely" pile.

what about if you just anaethesized them, and then extracted their blood, skipping the killing bit altogether?
then there would be no need to have to cure whatever you used to kill them in the first place, and you would only have to replace the blood before defrosting

There could be problems while extracting. The heart could collapse while beating, or something. Plus, anesthesia does not always keep the subject perfectly unconscious...

isnt there something about killing someone by injecting air into a vein?

or a nice big injection of potassium?

maybe an electric shock to the heart would stop it?

Air in the vein would cause a heart attack, which might damage the heart, and then there is still that nasty air bubble in the vein somewhere...

An electric shock sounds good, though. If it was low enough, it might not damage the heart, just make it stop.

Slowly cool the body down, when they are unconscious. If done correctly with certain gasses in the atmosphere, the human body goes into hibanation. Could be what you are looking for.

I don't want hibernation, I want death. It's important in this case for two reasons: first and foremost, the person in hibernation is still breathing, using up resources. I'd still have to hook them up to monitors to make sure they stay asleep, which would require more resources. If I just kill them, I can throw them in a freezer and be done with it.

In addition to that, a large part of the latter plot of the story revolves around whether it is ethical to perform this kind of "storage."

It's sci-fi. You could implant some sort of nervous off-switch system into them that instantly shuts down their minds, can be frozen, then generates a series of electrical pulses to "reboot" them once their blood has been replaced.

This is ultra hard sci-fi. The only "out-there" tech I am including is a worm-hole drive, because it is inescapable. Everything else is at least in a plausible theory state of development now. So, that chip will have to wait.

*snip*

That has certainly been proposed as a method of travel to the stars, but it wouldn't work in my story. The ships use Inertial Confinement Fusion engines (look it up, kids) to go around at sublight speeds, and so it only takes about a year to get to the center of the solar system. Then, a wormhole opens up and the ship travels through it to the next system.

So really, only a period of 4 or 5 years will pass.

suffocation?? after drugging them, so the drug just exits system normally after they are like put back together or whatever..

Suffocation causes brain damage, a definate no-no.

What about boredom? Make them watch episode after episode of the Bachelor or something like that until they drop dead.

This is ultra hard sci-fi. The only "out-there" tech I am including is a worm-hole drive, because it is inescapable. Everything else is at least in a plausible theory state of development now. So, that chip will have to wait.
If it's ultra hard sci-fi then there's no way you can do what you want to do. You shouldn't let "ultras" get in the way of a good story, though.

Everything you've suggested causes brain damage. That's what you mean by "dying". Heart stops? Yeah, the heart will die out too from lack of oxygen, but the brain will be severely damaged too. I agree with the suggestions of others - anaesthetize them and suck out their blood. Then quickly freeze 'em, before any of the tissues (read: brain) become damaged beyond repair.

Suffocation causes brain damage, a definate no-no.
i didnt know that. Wow learn something new everyday. :)

every time you have open heart surgery, they put you on a heart/lung machine and stop your heart.

why dont you look up what method they use?

Air in the vein would cause a heart attack, which might damage the heart, and then there is still that nasty air bubble in the vein somewhere...


Heart damage isn't really an issue, since scientist have successfully used stem cells to repair damage caused by heart attack. In 100 years perhaps even brain damage can be fixed.

And how about hypothermia as a mean to kill them?

Stop the heart with an electric shock as from defibrilation paddles. They can stop the heart just as efficiently as they start it. *nod*

Once they are unconscious just inject a bubble of air into their veins and it will stop their heart.

I suggest reading this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryopreservation).

Exsanguination after a considerable pain killer has been administered. Then freeze them within 2-4 minutes to prevent brain damage.

I failed to mention that this story only uses tech that will be feasable within 100 years. So anti-matter is a no-no.
Given the progress made within the last 100 years, all bets are off as to if or when antimatter becomes a feasible resource. It could be 20 years, it could be several thousand. It might never happen.

You shouldn't kill them. You need to replace their blood with another substance. I can't remember what exactly, and I'm no chemist, but you should be able to find it on the net somewhere.

A surgeon in Boston is working on a method of suspended animation so that you can effectively put the decline of trauma patients on hold while you operate on them. He's kept pigs in this state for up to 2 1/2 hours while he operates on them and then brought most of them back successfully. Perhaps it's not unreasonable to extrapolate this and say that in 100 years it will be applicable to humans and doable over a longish period of time.

Anyway, the process goes like this: First he anaesthetises the pig to minimise the possibility of pain. Then he simulates gun shot wounds by cutting a major artery and vein; 50% of blood is lost and the animal goes into advanced shock(because these are trials for a clinical application). He then drains the remainder of the blood and stores it and pumps organ preservation fluid - a cocktail of nutrients and free-radical scavengers routinely used to store transplant organs - chilled to 2C. Over the next 20 mins, body temp drops from 37C to 10C (colder temperatures cause rupturing of the cells).

The pigs enter a state in which they are described as having "no pulse, no blood, no electrical activity in its brain, and its tissues consume no oxygen" - to me that definitely qualifies as dead. The only difference is that their cells are not being allowed to deteriorate.

Revival simply consists of pumping the warmed blood back in.

After this account in New Scientist, it also said he'd tried it on uninjured pigs with virtually 100% success, so you could probably skip straight from anaesthetics to a controlled draining of the blood, this being less messy. The principle's the same, the bleeding's just more controlled.

Extending this over a long period of time, I think you'd probably need the subjects to take powerful antibiotics beforehand to sterilise their innards, otherwise you risk decay by any hardy organisms that can function at low temperatures. On revival, you'd need to quickly restore the populations of bacteria we rely on, so they'd have to eat lots of special supplements with cultures of gut flora or something.