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"the [science fiction] writer should be able to convince the reader (and himself) that the wonders he is describing really can come true...and that gets tricky when you take a good, hard look at the world around you."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Stasis (Cold Sleep, Hibernation) | ||
| Hibernation for human beings, lasting for many years. |
Heinlein discusses cold sleep (sometimes called cold rest) in several of his earlier novels. This novel provides some details in the process.
| It had been known since the '30s that the human body could be chilled until it slowed down to almost nothing. But it had been a laboratory trick, or a last-resort therapy, until the Six Weeks War. I'll say this for military research: if money and men can do it, it gets results. Print another billion, hire another thousand scientists and engineers, then in some incredible, left-handed, inefficient fashion the answers come up. Stasis, cold sleep, hibernation, hypothermia, reduced metabolism, call it what you will - the logistics-medicine research teams had found a way to stack people like cordwood and use them when needed. First you drug the subject, then hypnotize him, then cool him down and hold him precisely at four degrees centigrade; that is to say, at the maximum density of water with no ice crystals...
“Please. I’ve got troubles of my own and I’m not a psychiatrist. Really, all I’m interested in is finding out whether or not your heart will stand up under the ordeal of putting you down to four degrees centigrade. Which it will. And I ordinarily don’t care why anyone is nutty enough to crawl into a hole and pull it in after him; I just figure it is one less damn fool underfoot. But some residual tinge of professional conscience prevents me from letting any man, no matter how sorry a specimen, climb into one of those coffins while his brain is sodden with alcohol. Turn around.” |
| Technovelgy from The Door Into Summer,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1956 Additional resources -
|
Heinlein goes on to describe the various methods for waking people up from stasis:
Stasis, or cold rest, is to be distinguished from cryonic storage. As a corpsicle, you are frozen solid - and able to take centuries if necessary.
If you need him in a hurry he can be brought up by diathermy and posthypnotic command in ten minutes ... but such speed tends to age the tissues and may make him a little stupid from then on. If you aren't in a hurry two hours minimum is better...
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Door Into Summer
More Ideas
and Technology by Robert Heinlein
Tech news articles related to The Door Into Summer
Tech news articles related to works by Robert Heinlein
Stasis (Cold Sleep, Hibernation)-related
news articles:
- Cryogenic Suspension For Humans In Two Years
- Illustrating Classic Heinlein With AI
| ErythroMer Artificial Blood |
| MouthPad Supports Head And Tongue Tracking |
| Drug Induces Hibernation-Like State In Humans |
| Drug To Regenerate Teeth In Humans |
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