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"[Science fiction is] nightmares and visions, always outlined by the barely possible."
- Gregory Benford

Astronaut Sleep  
  The idea that there is a benefit to putting astronauts to sleep during space travel.  

This is a very early reference to this idea in fiction.

In every instance the take-off hits him as a severe shock, for he is hurled just as though he had been shot aloft by gunpowder to sail over mountains and seas. For this reason at the outset he must be lulled to sleep immediately with narcotics and opiates. His limbs must be arranged in such a way that his torso will not be torn away from his buttocks nor his head from his body, but the shock will be distributed among his individual limbs...
Technovelgy from Somnium (The Dream), by Johannes Kepler.
Published by Not Known in 1634
Additional resources -

Compare to cold-sleep in Heinlein's story Methuselah's Children (1941), or eternity drug by AE van Vogt in Far Centaurus (1944).

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Somnium (The Dream)
  More Ideas and Technology by Johannes Kepler
  Tech news articles related to Somnium (The Dream)
  Tech news articles related to works by Johannes Kepler

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