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Discussion of cryonics and space
CRYONICS AND SPACE
By Rand Simberg
Many attendees at the most recent Space Development
Conference in Chicago may have wondered what the "Alcor" table
in the hucksters area was all about. The astronomical
cognoscenti among them would have recognized the word as the
name of the dimmer star of a twin system which the ancients
used as a test of visual acuity. Those who took the time to
stop and pick up the literature and talk to the people behind
the table were exposed to a new rescue technology which, while
extremely controversial, is becoming of ever increasing
relevance to many space activists. Alcor is one of the most
successful of several organizations which offer the services
of cryonic suspension, or the possibility of being transported
into a future in which new technologies, such as the
nanotechnology described by the long-time space enthusiast, K.
Eric Drexler, will have pushed back the boundaries of space
travel and human mortality.
An integral aspect of Alcor's procedure is storage of
their "patients" in a very cold environment. Space may
provide an excellent location for such storage, not only due
to its desirability from a passive cooling standpoint, but
also because it may be less accessible to the potential
disruption of economic upheavals and radical societal changes.
Also, while the President's recent pronouncements on the
future of the space program should be encouraging to space
activists of all stripes, some of the bold endeavors he
described may come too late for many living today,
particularly those who are advanced in age. For those whose
dream is to live in space and see many of their fellow humans
afforded the opportunity to do so, cryonics represents not
only a potential means of stasis for long-duration missions,
perhaps to another star, but also a means of hedging their
bets to live to see their dream become a reality. Cryonics is
the only technological alternative currently available for
those who, like Woody Allen, choose to attempt to achieve
immortality not through their works or their progeny, but by
not dying.
Like space travel in the forties and fifties, cryonics
suffers from the stigma of being associated with science
fiction, which is "obviously" either a fantasy, or something
which will be achievable only in the distant future, if ever.
In the sixties, when the idea of freezing terminally ill
people for preservation and restoration by future technologies
was first seriously propounded, there was a great deal of
blind faith to it. There was no clear path to a technology
which could cure not only the ailment for which the patient
was frozen, but more critically, the whole-body frostbite
which was inevitably incurred by the cryonics process. The
notion was akin to placing an encrypted message, to which no
one had the key, in a bottle and casting it adrift in the seas
of time in the hope that someone would not only find, but be
able and willing to decipher it.
Since that time, however, the molecular assemblers and
cellular repair devices described by Drexler offer exactly the
type of technology required to make cryonics a viable
proposition on sound scientific grounds. At the same time,
groups like the non-profit Alcor Life Extension Foundation
have been formed to provide the organizational continuity
needed to assure care for the patients, from initial
suspension through storage to eventual reanimation and
integration into future society. Thus, as we enter the
l990's, cryonics has become a subject which anyone interested
in the future must at least consider seriously.
Cryonics is based upon the principle that most current
legal definitions of death are based on cessation of some body
function, such as respiration or coronary activity. Because
such criteria are arbitrary and dependent upon the level of
medical technology, such as resuscitators and CPR, Alcor
argues for an information-based criterion. By this standard,
a person would be dead only when the information patterns
which constituted their body and personality -- i.e., the
genetic structure and the synaptic pattern in the neurons of
the brain -- are destroyed beyond the capability of any future
technology to reassemble them. To preserve this information,
immediately following the legal declaration of death,
cryoprotectants, a kind of antifreeze, are circulated through
the patient's bloodstream to minimize damage caused by
freezing. The body is then chilled down to liquid nitrogen
temperatures (-196?C), which prevents any further
deterioration for an indefinite period of time.
Based on their research, it is believed by Alcor and
other cryonics organizations that the most current cryonics
techniques preserve the body and brain well enough to allow
future nanotechnology to restore the individual to full
health, memory, and vigor when it becomes available. While
many cryobiologists scoff at such notions, most of them are
unfamiliar with the theory of molecular assemblers which may
render them possible. In addition, their field of study is
concerned with preserving tissues to be revived with current
technology, needed for organ transplants and artificial
hibernation, rather than extrapolating future techniques.
Thus their expertise is not necessarily applicable in judging
the technical validity of cryonics. For these reasons,
cryonics is much more viable now than is commonly believed,
even by the so-called "experts".
Because of its unique requirements, cryonics may soon
provide a significant market for space transportation.
Currently, the patients are stored in liquid nitrogen, which
must be continually be replenished. While this is not
expensive, because of the relatively low cost of the fluid, it
does represent an ongoing cost of storage which it would be
advantageous to reduce, since it might be several decades or
even centuries before the needed technology becomes available.
More importantly, this storage technique is a weak link in the
patient's ultimate security, since if the caretaker
organization is prevented, for legal or financial reasons,
from topping off the cryogenic fluid, the patient will thaw
prematurely, defeating the original purpose of the suspension.
In the environment of space, it is much easier to design
cooling systems which passively provide liquid nitrogen
temperatures, requiring no consumables and little maintenance.
This could be done, for example, by placing them in orbit with
reflectors shielding the system from the sun and Earth, and
radiators pointed toward deep space, or by placing them in
caves at the poles of the moon, which never receive sunlight.
Storage in such locations would not only ensure continued
safekeeping at the temperatures needed to preserve the
patients, but also make them more difficult to get at by
unauthorized individuals. This is a legitimate concern, given
the legal difficulties that Alcor in particular has had, and
the fact that some people find the concept morally repugnant.
Because of the build-up of endowments left to cryonics groups
by their patients to ensure long-term care, these
organizations may soon have the financial resources, as well
as the need, to move themselves and their patients into space.
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