Act One of Robert Ettinger’s existence has drawn to a close. I plan on watching Weekend at Bernie’s in tribute. Associated Press reports:
Robert Ettinger, pioneer of the cryonics movement that advocates freezing the dead in the hope that medical technology will enable them to live again someday, has died. He was 92. His body became the 106th to be stored at the Cryonics Institute, which he founded in 1976.
The Cryonics Institute charges $28,000 to prepare a body and store it long-term in a tank of liquid nitrogen at minus 321 degrees Fahrenheit. The first person frozen there was Ettinger’s mother, Rhea Ettinger, who died in 1977. His two wives, Elaine and Mae, also are patients at the Institute. Similar facilities for preserving dead bodies operate in Arizona, California and Russia.
Ettinger also established the Immortalist Society, a research and education group devoted to cryonics and extending the human life span.
