X-Message-Number: 4129 Date: 01 Apr 95 14:56:04 EST From: Jim Davidson <> Subject: CryoNet #4111 - #4118 Yvan Bozzonetti also points admiringly to his long term projects. For this, I have great admiration. Two activity areas which I am working on have very long-term objectives. One is the opening of the space frontier. The other is the opening of the ocean frontier. For the first, I have helped found the Houston Space Institute, a research and educational institution whose goal is to preserve, disseminate, and enhance knowledge about the space frontier. The intention of the founders is to have an entity that operates on the time scale of a university rather than the time scale of a politician or merchant. Looking back, we can see that the earliest credible discussions of space as a frontier took place between Galileo and Kepler some 380 years ago. Sure, we have problems in accessing the space frontier today. But Galileo had trouble just contending that the moons of Jupiter were other planets. We've come a long way in almost 400 years. But we can see that it will be decades before humans are living in space and on other planets in large numbers, centuries before we have thoroughly settled the Solar System, millennia before we have explored even a portion of the galaxy. The Houston Space Institute intends to be around for at least a few of those millennia to keep the dream alive and moving. Is this goal important to life extensionists? Certainly. Having more places for humans to live alleviates any question of population pressure as a consideration against reviving cold sleepers. Having access to the resources of the Solar System will help a wide variety of economic and social problems on Earth. And the technology for suspended animation may be significantly advanced by efforts to explore distant reaches of our Solar System (one year to Mars, two years to Jupiter, four years to Saturn -- at current propulsion technology speeds; suspended animation makes it much more economical) or the stars beyond. I should point out that many life extension enthusiasts have had a long-term interest in space development (including Keith Henson, Mark Voelker, Eric Klien, and many others). The oceans of Earth represent another great undeveloped frontier. We can build ocean cities outside the territorial waters of any nation. Power them with ocean thermal energy conversion which uses the temperature difference between deep water and surface water as a heat engine. Use deep water for various industrial cooling purposes. Use the nutrient-rich property of deep water for mariculture. Conduct research on the organisms that live in cold deep water to advance our understanding of low-temperature biology. These ocean cities represent a place to conduct research that may be forbidden in other countries. Places that may permit subjects to have themselves frozen prior to death. And places that will adopt sensible definitions of life and death so that a suspended subject continues to have property rights, continues to avoid inheritance taxes, etc. Again, these ocean cities represent access to resources that will contribute to solving economic and political problems. Ocean water is a great ore body for many important minerals, especially magnesium. The bottoms of the oceans have mineral nodules which have precipitated out over the millennia, thus deep sea bed mining may prove valuable. And, of course, life underwater is similar in many ways to life in space, so that much can be learned from one environment to apply to the other. Several life extension enthusiasts have joined me in working to improve a company, Sea Structures Inc, which manufactures building materials for floating platforms. Others are working on a New Country Foundation, and still others on the Atlantis Project, two important organizations which are promoting new habitats on the surface of the oceans. So, Yvan, the answer is, no. You are not the only immortalist who is taking an interest in very long term projects. Jim Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=4129