Cryosleeping - Space Apps Challenge

Cryosleeping| Sleep Shift Scheduling Tool

Sleep Shift Scheduling Tool

Sleep loss and fatigue may lead to reduced performance and an increased risk to safety during many activities, including spaceflight. Your challenge is to develop an operational sleep shift scheduling tool that provides autonomous customization of a schedule for sleep, exercise, and nutrition to manage fatigue.

Cryogenic Sleeping

Summary

The idea is to develop a device with a specific system called "Cryogenic Sleep". The cryogenic sleep process’s purpose is to decrease energy utilized by the body. Cooling the body in a capsule filled with liquid nitrogen is the target. Oxygen will be sourced using a device connected to his respiratory organs, as well as nutrients through another device connected to his digestive organs. “Propofol” will be used to drug the astronaut & put him in sleeping mode and “Ritalin” will be used to wake him up on time. The brain must also receive a high amount of blue light for its role in resetting the circadian rhythm by blocking the melatonin (the enzyme responsible for sleeping and waking up).

How We Addressed This Challenge

· We developed a way to make astronauts travel from earth to space and finally to MARS in the most efficient way to make them use least energy, water, oxygen, food, nutrients, and metabolism by putting them in sleeping mode.

· Our project is essential because without astronauts using less supplies for living up there, they will basically need all the needed supplies for living just like their needs on planet earth normally. And it's not possible to take all these supplies on a spaceship on space for such a long trip, therefore the whole spacecraft would not actually be possible.

· It simply puts astronauts in hibernate mode by sleeping for long periods (about 2 weeks) considering their health care, metabolism and giving them the least needed nutrients, water, and energy to stay alive after applying our developed process.

· The process (cryogenic sleeping) is a bit complicated as we constantly need to be sure that they are living perfectly and in completely no danger. The process will start by drugging the astronaut with a chemical substance called Propofol after making sure that his brain has received the right amount of blue light to block the melatonin (the enzyme responsible of sleeping and waking up) to assure that he's resting in the right way then finally sleeping. The astronaut will be set in a capsule on the spaceship that will be filled (the capsule) with liquid nitrogen, its job is to cool down the core and body's temperature in order to maintain all body systems functioning, but with the minimum need of energy, nutrients, metabolism, and oxygen. The process will function by applying the process of ALCOR foundation which uses vitrification process to avoid the cells in tissues from freezing, but it will solidify, in this way it would not damage any organ tissues. Oxygen and nutrients will be supplied to the body from two different devices connected to the capsule to give the astronaut the right amount of oxygen and nutrients that would function the body systems after testing his health care. To avoid the chemical reactions of the breathing system that would give a percentage of danger to the human body, there would be a mask with two pipes attached to his respiratory system organs (mouth and nose), one responsible for supplying oxygen to the body, and one responsible of pulling the produced carbon dioxide away. In this way his body is controlled in his sleeping mood until he must wake up after a studied period of time. We'll then use the chemical substance called Ritalin in order to wake him up in the right time as it can bring him out of anesthesia almost immediately.

· The goal and target of this whole complicated project is to maintain astronauts alive but using the least needed supplies that would still function all their body systems on space in order to make them travel very long spacecrafts and discover more in science and hopefully another planet to live on. We finally hope that the project would achieve what we've all been dreaming about which is to live on another planet to avoid living with the danger that is exposed to our planet earth daily.

How We Developed This Project

We have read all the challenges, but this challenge caught our eyes. When we read this challenge, we all got interested. It was like the challenge united us. We didn’t take a lot of time to make our decision. We thought that a single simple idea in this challenge can be a turning point for space exploration. Because a good solution can open new doors of thinking that were thought to be closed forever.

There are many recommendations that must be taken into account. First EPS, although it is the best insulation material that we found, but it still has some disadvantages that may be in some cases fatal. One of them is that Over extended periods of time exposing to ultraviolet radiation, when the outermost cells ongoing deterioration, the material thickness can erode to a point where R-value loss is possible due to the proportional reduction in insulation thickness. Second is that we chose aluminum to be the building material of the capsule but although it has got luminous advantages, it still has the same problem. When it's exposed to ultraviolet radiation over extended periods of time it would erode and become harmful and non-useful. So, it is recommended to find a building and insulation material better than EPS and aluminum in resisting against ultraviolet radiation.

We used an Arduino and with its programming language as it is very economical. We used also After effects, Premiere pro and Blender to design and make the simulation video. We also used photoshop and power point to make a presentation.

The greatest problem that was an obstacle to us was the lack of technology. This hinders us from making real experiments to choose the best materials to build the capsule. This was a big problem, but it didn’t disappoint us. We found many results of experiments on internet that helped us in choosing the materials. The greatest achievement is discovering a way to cool the human body to reach -32 Celsius, but also keeping him alive and maintaining all the body systems functioning with the minimum need for energy, nutrients, metabolism, and oxygen.

How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project

We've used the attached resources on NASA's website, like "Seven Ways Astronauts Improve Sleep May Help You Snooze Better on Earth" as we took the data related to sleeping schedules to make sleeping schedules for the astronauts. As well as making a suitable environment for the sleeping astronaut and taking care of that by isolating him while sleeping from the outer environment while he's in the capsule. We also used data like the "light" topic to know when exactly to expose special colored lights to the astronaut's brain through his eyes to block the melatonin enzyme, we also studied the types of lightning to target the ones that can activate the part in the brain that would secrete the melatonin. We've also taken info from the data to know how to track the behavior of each astronaut while sleeping and to give him the most as possible comfortable sleep. We also used the other attached resource on NASA's website " NASA Research Reveals Biological Clock Misalignment Effects on Sleep for Astronauts" to collect some accurate data for our project. We've known more about 'circadian rhythms'. After that, we have adjusted their specified circadian rhythms based on the amounts & types of lights that would be exposed to the astronaut, the amount and type of nutrients that would be supplied to the astronaut, the drugs that would be given to the astronaut, oxygen that would be supplied to the astronaut, the total energy that the astronaut would exploit, and finally the period of time that the astronaut is supposed to sleep.