X-Message-Number: 4251
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 1995 20:12:44 -0400
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <>
Subject: Re: SCI.CRYONICS "Interstellar Immersion Biostasis"

MAC TONNIES <> writes:
> I'm well aware of the odds of being found by an advanced culture
> (whether our own or someone else's...), but have to wonder if
> taking one's chances in the interstellar vacuum might be safer
> than containment here on Earth.

Are you aware of the odds?  Interstellar space is big.  I once worked
out how we could locate probes similar to Voyager II which may be
drifting between the stars.  I concluded that the only way (assuming
no magical new technology is developed) would be with a fleet of
*quintillions* of relativistic starships, each with a radar so powerful
that we can be sure that not one such radar is currently operating
anywherein the known universe, or we would have easily picked it up
on our radio telescopes.

Of course we could simply *keep track* of where our cryonaut had been
placed in interstellar space, so that they can later be located and
recovered.  Better yet, they could be placed on Pluto or one of
Neptune's outer moons.  Those should be more than cold enough.

However, the cost of getting anyone there is enormously more than the
cost of many centuries of liquid nitrogen here on Earth.

The gold record on Voyager II is estimated to be able to last for about
ten billion years before radiation makes it unreadable.  The chances
of it being found in that period (other than in the next few centuries,
by humans who look up its last known trajectory) are effectively zero.

A cryonics patient would probably last about 10,000 years before
radiation made them definitely non-revivable.  Or perhaps 100,000 years.
Certainly not any longer, not even if you managed to block all the
cosmic rays, since people's bodies are themselves radioactive.

You could make a cryonics patient much less radioactive if you fed them
lots of potassium with the potassium-40 removed, for several weeks
before death.  This expensive pre-treatment has never been done, since
nobody expects anyone to remain frozen for anything remotely close to
10,000 years.  If today's cryonics patients aren't revived in the next
century or three, they probably never will be, and aren't likely to
stay frozen much longer than that anyhow, given the vagaries of nature,
politics, and economics.

> I foresee it becoming available to the public in the next century...
> and therefore dealt with by cryonicists.

It's conceivable that cryonic storage on Pluto will someday be cheaper
than storage on Earth.  Unlikely though, since it takes more energy to
get to Pluto than to make several centuries' supply of liquid nitrogen
on Earth.  But even if it's more expensive, some might opt for Pluto if
they're concerned about vandalism or political instability on Earth.

I suggest we discuss this topic again in about a hundred years.


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