The Final Freeze: How Cryonic Preservation Locks You in Time
Once the water in your body is replaced with a cryoprotectant, your body is gradually cooled on a bed of dry ice until it reaches -130°C (-202°F). At this temperature, the vitrification process is complete, and your tissues are in a glass-like, ice-free state.
Next, your body is carefully placed into an individual aluminum container, which is then inserted into a large, insulated metal tank filled with liquid nitrogen. The temperature inside the tank remains at an astonishing -196°C (-320°F). Interestingly, your body is stored head-down—a precaution designed to ensure that, in the unlikely event of a leak, your brain stays submerged in the freezing liquid.
Cryonics is far from inexpensive. Whole-body preservation can cost upwards of $150,000. For those seeking a more budget-friendly route into the future, neurosuspension is an option. For around $50,000, only your brain is preserved, with the hope that future technology will be able to clone or regenerate a body to match.
In storage facilities, each patient—whether whole-body or neurosuspended—is placed in their own aluminum container, which is housed in a “neuropod” or “wholebody pod.” These pods are then submerged together in a shared tank of liquid nitrogen.
So, if you opt for cryonic suspension, you won’t be entirely alone. Multiple patients—full bodies and isolated brains alike—are often stored together in the same towering, nitrogen-filled tanks, silently awaiting a scientific breakthrough that could one day bring them back to life.
