One way to drastically reduce the cost of a mission to Mars is to render unconscious the astronauts, inducing them into hibernation, into a cave of their own dreams. From Jordan Pearson at Wired Motherboard:

NASA is bankrolling research into the technology necessary to put people to sleep for months at a time via SpaceWorks, an Atlanta-based company that presented their work at last week’s International Astronomical Congress in Toronto.

According to the company, inducing torpor in a crew of astronauts would eliminate the need for space-wasting accommodations like food galleys, exercise equipment, and large living quarters. Robots that electrically stimulate key muscle groups and intravenously-delivered sustenance will take care of all that.

By eliminating the extra room required for people to live and move around in, ships could be smaller, and more safety features like better shielding could be added. According to SpaceWorks’ mockups, the size of astronaut crew living quarters for a Mars mission could be reduced from their currently proposed size of 8.2×9 metres to just 4.3×7.5. That drastic reduction in size means huge savings on build materials and lift costs for the cash-strapped agency.•