Trirenogen changed the equation.
Trirenogen
Interstellar travel presented humanity with a problem propulsion alone could not solve.
Even at relativistic velocities, journeys to neighboring star systems require decades. Building a spacecraft capable of making that journey was an engineering challenge. Keeping its passengers alive, healthy and psychologically capable of enduring it was an entirely different one..
First discovered in 2086 by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, Trirenogen is a three-compound therapeutic system capable of inducing profound metabolic suppression. During suspension, respiration and cellular activity fall to a fraction of normal levels while an individual's biological aging is reduced to near-negligible rates.
Following years of laboratory research, ethical review and human trials, Trirenogen became the foundation of Middleton Space's long-duration human suspension program and ultimately one of the enabling technologies behind the Promise Series colony ships.
Trirenogen began with an unexpected laboratory result during neurological research in Baltimore in 2086. A combination of three compounds produced a state researchers initially struggled to explain: an experimental animal remained alive despite metabolic activity falling to levels previously considered incompatible with survival.
Dr. Yuki Tanaka's team spent the following fourteen months attempting to reproduce the result. They succeeded 47 times.
What began as an unexpected result in a university laboratory ultimately solved one of the fundamental problems of human interstellar travel.
