Read Online Freezing People is (Not) Easy by Bob Nelson, Kenneth Bly, PhD Sally Magaña - Free Book Online

she was struggling to show enthusiasm for this strange twist I brought into our lives. Nevertheless, she offered her hospitality to Professor Ettinger during his stay. Before he returned to Michigan, he thanked Elaine and in parting said, “I’ll see you again. If not in a year—well—in a thousand years.”

    Cryonics was uncharted territory, and deciding what path CSC should take was crucial to its long-term success. Some cryonics groups were focusing on gaining membership; others were preparing storage for the expected flood of frozen patients.
    I figured that if doctors were ever going to revive a frozen patient, we needed to protect the patient from damage caused by freezing. I decided that aggressive research would be our first priority.
    Curtis Henderson and Saul Kent, the directors of CSNY, visited us in LA and arranged a meeting with Robert W. Prehoda, a medical researcher and prolific author studying cryobiology.
    Meeting Robert at his home in Encino, California, was one of the most influential and informative conversations of my life. He was an expert in reduced metabolism and gave me a crash course in the underlying physics of cryonic freezing. Over the next several months, I went to college in his living room, and the coursework cemented my hope. I learned that on the evolutionary tree, man is not far from many natural hibernators.
    I wrote Professor Ettinger about Robert and he wrote back that, yes, he knew of Robert’s work but didn’t have much respect for the man’s character. Robert had praised The Prospect of Immortality after its initial release; however, he retreated from his original support after the scientific community disputed Ettinger’s thesis. I saw Professor Ettinger’s point but felt that Robert was too valuable and accepted him into the CSC.
    I scavenged through Robert’s brain for every morsel of information about the leaders in low-temperature biology. Slowly we established a bond, although he knew I was mainly after his knowledge and I knew he was interested in the potential dollars CSC could deliver from research grants. We had a mutually beneficial, though not particularly affectionate, relationship.
    Robert created collaborations with other scientists working in reduced-metabolism research. Two months later, Robert set up a meeting at his home. Five colleagues were interested in forming a scientific advisory council for CSC because of the research’s potential for groundbreaking discoveries. CSC would provide funding, and Robert would help apply for grants.
    CSC Scientific Advisory Council
    The council was happy to provide research into human suspended animation but wanted no part in actually freezing anyone. If the CSC did freeze someone, the affiliation would be irrevocably dissolved. At the end of our meeting, we all felt we had achieved a monumental step forward.
    That evening, I went home and told my wife the news. I was still giddy and amazed that I, a nonscientist without a college degree, was collaborating with scientists in such a revolutionary field. I had come so far from my days as a homeless teenager and wanted Elaine to be proud of me. Ever since I had moved back home, she had kept herself involved with the children and firmly disconnected from cryonics.
    â€œWhat do you think?” I prodded after I told her about the advisory council.
    Elaine bit her lip. “Well, it helps, I suppose. I guess it sounds more respectable now than one of those groups obsessed with flying saucers or life on other planets.” She picked up Lori’s ripped book bag. “But truly, Bob, who cares? Will it fix your daughter’s backpack? That’s what I’m concerned about. I tried calling you at work a dozen times today, and you weren’t there earning a paycheck.”
    â€œI had more important things to do than fixing someone’s TV set. Don’t you understand the potential of what we’re doing?”
    â€œI