Cryogenics facility in NSW to accommodate those in the market for life after death
Updated
The town of Holbrook is no stranger to quirk.
Many a traveller on the Hume Highway would have wondered how a submarine ended up in the centre of a New South Wales country town more than 300 kilometres from the sea.
The story behind the sub involves a bit of a history lesson, but Holbrook's latest unusual venture looks very much to the future.
The town is set to host Australia's first cryogenics facility.
People who hope to be revived after death will be housed in a warehouse on the outskirts of town, frozen in time until science has advanced enough to bring them back to life.
"Like most Australians you'd laugh at something like that," Holbrook Hotel barman Neil Johnston told Lateline.
"Rich people think they can live forever. It's just people wasting money."
Despite the scepticism, Mr Johnston is not opposed to the project.
"It's cool. Anything they build in a country town is good, anything at all. There's no Nimbyism down here," he said.
Safe storage for bodies frozen in time
Freezing your whole body at the Holbrook facility is likely to cost about $90,000, most of which will go into investment funds to ensure no further payments are necessary.
Southern Cryonics is the company behind the project and 10 cryonics devotees have invested $50,000 each to get it started.
Company secretary Matt Fisher is one of them. He said Holbrook was the perfect location because it is on a major highway, relatively safe from natural disaster and potential attack, and because the zoning worked.
"We needed somewhere that was zoned for both cemetery use and mortuary use," he said.
"Places like that are hard to find, but this one was perfect."
Mr Fisher is happy in the knowledge that the little country town may one day be his resting place, at least until someone can bring him back.
"I might be here for a while, hopefully not forever, but it's a nice place to take a break," he said.
The 34-year-old software developer is the first to admit that reviving someone after death will not be possible without significant advances in medical technology.
"When I'm in an optimistic mood I think it could be as little as 25 or 30 [years away]. Sometimes I think maybe it will take 100 or 200," he said.
Australians already freezing their brains for the future
Until now Australians who wanted their whole body frozen have only had the option of going overseas to facilities in the US and Russia.
Already, some 10 Australians have had their brains frozen at existing cryogenics facilities in Australia.
Phil Roades, 65, a former bio-medical researcher, convinced both his parents to have their brains frozen after their deaths, 10 days apart, last year.
"I twisted their arms basically," he said.
"People who are whole body frozen in the cryonic sense definitely do want to get revived in the future, but someone who only freezes their brain is possibly only doing it to preserve the information that's in their brain for historical posterity.
"It might be just a bonus if they get revived in a synthetic or virtual body, or even a new biological body."
Mr Roades is hopeful the cost of freezing your whole body in Holbrook will prove worth it.
"What can you lose? A bit of cash basically."
The story behind the sub
Greater Hume Shire Council Mayor Heather Wilton said Holbrook was happy to accommodate those in the market for life after death.
"It's not my cup of tea, but I am accepting of the fact that some people are very interested in that sort of thing, and I've got an open mind and I think we wouldn't get anywhere in this world if we'd never tried anything," she said.
And the story behind the submarine?
That starts back around the time of World War I when a more patriotic name was needed for the town then known as Germanton.
It was decided to rename the town after decorated submarine captain Norman Douglas Holbrook.
A few decades later the sub itself was purchased as a tribute to the more recent namesake.
Holbrook is now looking for a builder for its latest venture.
Then it will be a matter of waiting for the first patient.
Watch the story tonight on Lateline at 9.30pm (AEDT) on ABC News 24 or 10.30pm on ABC TV.
Topics: science-and-technology, human-interest, offbeat, forensic-science, death, holbrook-2644
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