other five. This is a big increase in the suspension rate, but it is not an overwhelming number. A single team, essentially doing nothing but cryonic suspensions all around the world, could keep very busy at this activity. Among other points, they could support themselves purely by doing cryonic suspensions. That's not trivial at all; any further increase would need another team. Yet on the other side, the suspension rate in 2001, just like the number of cryonicists, would not be "large" as society usually measures such things. To train a suspension team will take considerable effort. Jerry Leaf has long experience in open-heart surgery. The figures above suggest to me that we should start thinking about such training, even now (It might easily happen that other people, just as skilled as Jerry, will defect to cryonics from ordinary medicine, but we should not depend on that). ---------------------------------------------------------------------(32)
CRYONICS AT 4000 A second conclusion also comes from these numbers: at some point, cryonics (that is, Alcor) will reorganize, because it must. We currently have a total of three facilities: one in England and two in the United States. By 2001 we might expect about 30 facilities around the world. At the same time, we may have only one or two fully qualified suspension teams. To work on a suspension team will therefore involve considerable travel, either of patients or of the team (probably both!). In fact if not in name, the Suspension Teams are likely to make one independent organization, worldwide, while the facilities will be managed and paid for by local groups. I believe that officers of Alcor should keep this implication in mind. Any local group running its own facility will sooner or later become impatient with centralization of funds in Alcor Riverside. Eventually we can expect two kinds of cryonics society: one that manages a suspension facility, another one providing skilled surgical teams for suspension itself, quite possibly attached to no individual facility at all. Among other points, notice that if we had 30 suspension facilities, then each one would only be used for about three times a year, suspending local members. We might even have three kinds of cryonics society: after all, not every facility needs to engage in permanent storage. We can also expect some kind of professional standards for operating a cryonics facility. In practice the refusal of a suspension team to work at a particular facility would severely frustrate its acceptance. The team would have great power. At the same time, that team would spend its time freezing people, not inspecting facilities to see that they conform to