Ultra-rich are paying to freeze themselves into 'cryo-sleep' in hope of new life in future
The ultra-rich are investing their surplus money in the hope of a new life by having themselves cryogenically preserved in liquid nitrogen. That said, freezing your brain for up to 200 years will cost you $102,000.
Spearheaded by Bristol-born scientist Dr Max More, the premium service is being offered by Alcor Life Extension Foundation based in Scottsdale, Arizona.
As of now, the company boasts of 1,100 paying members on its accounts, including elderly people, terminally ill patients, as well as people in their 50s. They are hoping that when they are thawed out, their medical problems and diseases will be cured with the advanced medicine at the time.
Quite a few members have opted for full body preservation, which costs somewhere around $255,000.
Speaking exclusively to Daily Star Sunday, one businessman among the applicants believes he will wake up in the future after his brain is placed in another body.
Concealing his identity, the man, in his late 60s, asked to be referred to as David.
He said, “I know that a lot of people will think I’m daft, but why not give it a try? Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
“I don’t have any children and I’m not married and at my age, that’s unlikely to change.
“I thought I’d invest a bit of money in this and I may wake up in 200 or 2,000 years’ time and be able to experience a whole new life. I can’t think of anything more exciting.
“Only my close family know I am doing this and most are very supportive. Their attitude is, ‘It’s your money so spend it how you like’.”
The company expects surgeons of the future to be able to grow a new body around a cured brain. However, Alcor leaves the organ protected within the head during preservation and storage because removing the brain from the skull could cause unanticipated damage.
How it works is that Alcor puts a specialist team on standby if a person is approaching the end of their life, so that they can prepare them for preservation to maintain the quality of the organs.
The technicians are allowed to start packing the body on ice only when the death has been officially declared. They affix a “heart-lung resuscitator” to the body to get the blood circulating as soon as the person dies.
In order to protect the cells from crystallizing, the experts administer 16 different medications to the body.
According to company records, there are 149 dead "patients" at their facility. These include US baseball legend Ted Williams and two-year-old Matheryn Naovaratpong of Thailand, the youngest person to ever be cryopreserved.
Cryonicists say restoring life from such low temperatures and using various chemicals could prove detrimental to the corpse. However, they hope that advances in medicine will overcome such side effects and be able to treat the disease or disorder that led to a patient's untimely demise.