Re: starship-design: Cryogenic Suspension

["bugzapper" <bugzappr@bellsouth.net>]

OK! This is the message I somehow missed last March!
(Guess maybe I was cringing too hard at Steve's news: that bears don't
hibernate, they estivate.)

----- Original Message -----
From: <KellySt@aol.com>
To: <starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2001 8:22 PM
Subject: Re: starship-design: Cryogenic Suspension


> Their is also a new proces called vitrification.  In it the person is
chilled
> down to below freezing under presure.  With enough presure you can chill
> someone down to a very low temp without freezing.  Suddenly drop the
presure
> at that point, and the fluids freeze so fast it doesn't crystalize.  It
turns
> to glass.  No ice crystal damage.
>
> Cryonics folks are very excited.

Well I'm excited too. Sounds better than a thousand platinum needles to me.
But --- I don't want to retain consciousness for any procedure that makes me
cold. I'm supersensitive to being chilled; it's directly painful to me. I
have a horror of cold water. I am quite aware that general anesthesia is a
risky medical technique, and that in general any method which may force
unconsciousness in a person can also cause death. But unbearable pain can
also cause death. So I'd prefer not to have to endure any coolth.

Obviously the warmup would have to be slow. This is a hyperbaric process, so
it will expose the reviving body to all the perils that deep sea divers
face: the bends, oxygen poisoning, etc. But the last portion of the warmup,
as physiology is being restored, will still have to be done fast. Nuke my
corpsicle, or if you can't figure out how to do that safely, use an
ultrasonic technique for acoustic heating, but somehow warm me up from the
inside so I don't have to endure the frigid agony of warming gradually in a
tub.

Johnny Thunderbird