Robert Ettinger, the founder of the cryonics movement and of the
Cryonics Institute, died on Saturday, July 23, at home in Clinton
Township, Michigan, and has been frozen at the Institute. The
cryonics movement advocates storage at very low temperatures after
death in the hope that future technology will permit revival and the
cure of aging and disease.
Mr. Ettinger wrote The Prospect of Immortality in 1964, a book
advocating and explaining the cryonics thesis. From The Prospect of
Immortality:
The fact: At very low temperatures it is possible, right
now, to preserve dead people with essentially no
deterioration, indefinitely. . .
The assumption: If civilization endures, medical science
should eventually be able to repair almost any damage to
the human body, including freezing damage and senile
debility or other cause of death. . .
Hence we need only arrange to have our bodies,after we
die, stored in suitable freezers against the time when
science may be able to help us. No matter what kills us,
whether old age or disease, and even if freezing
techniques are still crude when we die, sooner or later our
friends of the future should be equal to the task of reviving
and curing us.
The Prospect of Immortality has been published around the world, with
new editions currently in print or planned in South Korea, Taiwan and
China.
Mr. Ettinger popularized the cryonics movement in the 1960s and
1970s through appearances on a wide variety of talk shows, including
The Tonight Show and the David Frost, Mike Douglas and Merv Griffin
programs.
Other books by Mr. Ettinger further discussed the cryonics thesis and
the promise of future technology. They include Man Into Superman
(1970) and Youniverse (2009). New Asian editions of Man into
Superman are also currently planned. The Philosophy of Robert
Ettinger (2002) is a collection of academic essays discussing Mr.
Ettinger’s ideas.
Mr. Ettinger was born in 1918, and served in the U.S. Army in Belgium
during World War II, where he was seriously wounded. Mr. Ettinger
spent several years in hospitals after the war, and his legs were saved
as a result of then innovative bone graft surgery. That sparked Mr.
Ettinger’s interest in the promise of future medical technology.
Mr. Ettinger founded the Cryonics Institute in 1976 in order to create a
non-profit organization that could freeze and store patients at death.
CI (www.cryonics.org) has over 900 members worldwide in addition to
106 patients in storage. As advances in research have further
confirmed the likelihood of dramatic improvements in future medicine,
the cryonics movement has grown to include thousands of supporters
worldwide, including organizations in Russia, Australia, Germany and
other locations.
Mr. Ettinger also founded the Immortalist Society, an organization
devoted to education and research relating to cryonics and life
extension.
For further information, contact David Ettinger at (313) 465-7368,
(313) 690-7767 or cdettin@aol.com.
