X-Message-Number: 27241 Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 09:50:11 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: for Jeff Davis and others For Jeff Davis: Besides the problems others have brought up about a facility "somewhere in the American desert" there is another one which needs mentioning. By now we should recognize that we cannot simply suspend our patients and leave them suspended in some site far away from civilization. One or more living people need to be there watching over them 24 hrs a day, 365 days a year. If not watched over in that way, one way or another something will go wrong. Dewars break down normally; and they don't do so in any fixed schedule either. Ditto for any N2 liquefaction machines, or anything at the facility needed for continuous (even if only occasional) operation. Nor are deserts free from weather, earthquakes, sandstorms, etc --- which may by chance attack the storage facility. And last but hardly least, people can come by and damage both the facility and the patients within it, either accidentally (well, it hardly looked as if the building was being used!) or quite deliberately. Now if you wish to volunteer to live in such a facility, welcome. You'll of course want at least one other person to take over for you unless you've worked out how to do without sleep; and even if so, there are the accidents and diseases that can happen to you. Two more people would be better, and lots more even better. Naturally, because you'll all want to eat and sleep, and I hope do more than that, you'll have to have a part of the facility for the team taking care of it. If I were seriously asked why no one has tried seriously to put together a facility for storage far away from everywhere, I would say that it is the need for human protection which prevents that. It's easy to come up with machines which will (usually) keep someone preserved, and (usually) keep them safe. The trouble with that comes from the simple fact that we want our cryonics patients preserved AS WELL AS POSSIBLE, and right now that means we need people there where they're stored. (Usual) preservation and (usual) safety just aren't good enough. Best wishes and long long life to all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=27241