Adventure, exploration, the unknown, beyond the horizon, the impossible.

These can all evoke thoughts of places thought unreachable, thought impossible to climb, navigate, reach, or overcome.

There are very few places left on planet earth that someone hasn’t reached at this point in time. The golden age of exploration is seemingly fizzingly out.

We have reached the poles, climbed the mountains, reached the bottom of the seas, crossed deserts and mastered oceans.

However…

People are still surpassing the limits previously set. We may not be breaking new physical ground, but we are certainly pushing the boundaries of how high, far, and fast we can go.

“Because it’s there… Everest is the highest mountain in the world, and no man has reached its summit. It's existence is a challenge. The answer is instinctive, a part, I suppose, of man’s desire to conquer the universe.” - George Mallory. (In the NY Times, 1923)

Human potential might be limited by our relatively fragile physiology, we can adapt to a degree but our survivability becomes severely compromised under relatively small environmental variations (eg: heat, cold, altitude, exposure, etc).

But then we still are able to exceed expectations and go beyond.

Much like how sporting records and successes continue to be broken, not through fundamental changes in our human physiology, but with technological and training advances that allow us to augment greater performances.

Human’s from a physiological standpoint are relativelty unchanged from our predecessors and ancestors. We are still dealing with the same hardware as we always have been.

Speak to any elite level performer and they will likely tell you that they are really no different to you or me, they just took the decades to train to a level that allows them to perform at the heights of their own physiologic abilities. Coupled with the latest technological advances and you have a strong drive for better, further, faster etc.

The power then comes in the science and research of our own physiology and that of the extremes in environmental and perfromance boundaries in order to find the avenues that allow us to squeeze out those extra few % degrees of perfromance from our old-school physological hardware.

Some examples of this in practice include…

The use of artifical oxygen tanks allow us to overcome the ‘death-zone’ when climbing at altitude.

Similarly, compressed gas bottles allow us to descend down deeper below the oceans surface.

Altitude training allows runners to raise the ability of their blood to carry and supply oxygen beyond that possible at sea level.

Aerodynamic advances allow cyclists to hold the most efficient positions to beat speed and distance records.

Highly-sophisticated exercise technology allows us to partially combat the severe bone-density degredation that occurs during the micro-gravity experienced in orbit and space.

And many more that we will come on to look at in future.

More than just a sterilised and clinical view of this as pure scientific theory and research though, the most important element is still the person in the suit or completing the impossible.

The mental and physical fortitude of individuals who are performing at the edge of their own and humanities boundaries are unique.

They hear impossible and double down their efforts.

When questioned “why?”, they will invariably answer “Because it’s there…”

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