X-Message-Number: 7224 Date: 27 Nov 96 02:00:48 EST From: Paul Wakfer <> Subject: Prometheus Project Update The Prometheus Project pledge total now stands at $314,100 per year for the first ten years of the Project from 60 pledgers. The Project has been "repackaged" as a project to perfect long-term fully reversible human suspended animation within 20 years. The first ten years is now a reversible brain cryopreservation study to prove the feasibility of the larger project and to make the possibility of its accomplishment credible enough to raise the larger per year funding which will likely be necessary to accomplish that more ambitious goal. The reason for this change is that the goal of whole-body suspended animation has more applications, and should appeal to larger numbers of people than the brain cryopreservation goal alone. Yet, it should be no less appealing to cryonicists who will clearly recognize that it satisfies their needs also. The "new" Project and its web site have been recently announced on the following news groups: sci.life-extension, misc.health.alternative, rec.arts.sf.science, sci.bio.misc, sci.bio.technology, bionet.general, bionet.neuroscience. It has been mentioned on a couple of lists including the Extropians. It was also mentioned twice during the discussions which took place on sci.cryonics and sci.physics. If anyone has any suggestions of other news groups or lists which would be appropriate, please let me know. I would also like to have as many web sites as possible have links to the Prometheus Project web site. If anyone can help me with this or give me ideas on how to accomplish it, I would be very grateful. Unfortunately, the pledge campaign has greatly slowed down. The two California meetings were very poorly attended and not worth the effort of their arrangements. That was a shame because all those who didn't attend missed a very interesting talk (with pictures of live grafted dog heads, no less) by the Project's consulting cryobiologist. Because of these meeting failures, no more meetings are planned at this time. The Project will be represented at the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M) conference in Las Vegas on Dec 14-16. I do hope to raise some interest there. In addition, I have asked to give a presentation about the Project at the Alcor Technology Festival in February. I expect this will be acceptable, although I have not yet received any affirmative reply. Again, if anyone has any ideas on how I can reach more cryonicists and get them to pledge, through meetings, mailings or whatever (grabbing them by the neck and shaking them :), I would be most grateful for your ideas and/or help. I quite openly admit that I am in somewhat of a quandary as to how to increase the rate at which pledges are being received. If the present rate (of under $1K per week) keeps up, it is clear that the Project will take so long to fund that it will simply never happen. On the other hand, the *average* rate over the initial months is not that bad, if only we can find a way to get back to that rate. I *know* that there is more than enough money among cryonicists alone to fund this project. Clearly, either they don't value the chance of future life sufficiently to give up some present value or they don't believe that the Prometheus Project will accomplish anything of great value to increase their chance at that future life. I would be more willing to accept the latter view if I were actually *asking* for money and had all the plans laid out for them to see. However, I am *not* asking for money, but only conditional pledges to show that such a project is feasible. *Only* when I show that the Project funding is possible will enough scientific support be forthcoming to supply the detailed planning which will be needed before I or anyone else can write a business plan for the Project. Then you will all have your chance to legitimately say "it can't be done" and we will make changes to try to come up with a Project plan which is both workable and valuable. In closing, I want to make it very clear that while I sometimes feel discouraged, I am still determined to continue with this Project which has already accomplished more in gaining potential funding support for research than has ever been done in cryonics before. I am open to any suggestions as to what can to done or changed to accomplish this goal. Personally, I am still firmly convinced that the Prometheus Project, or something very like it, must be accomplished before I have any reasonable chance of vastly extended life. I ask all of you to please, please help me save my life and yours too. -- Paul -- Phone: 416-968-6291 Pager: 800-805-2870 HELP TO ACHIEVE - PERFECTED SUSPENDED ANIMATION WITHIN 20 YEARS! Check out the Prometheus Project web site at URL: http://www.prometheus-project.org/prometheus/ Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7224