A company over in Australia has become the first in the country to offer a potential second chance at life by freezing corpses until science can bring them back.
The process of cryogenic freezing has been around for some time, and involves storing humans and animals in extremely low temperatures to preserve them until the world has found a cure for their condition or is able to bring them back to life in the future.
Southern Cryonics is getting in on the action as the first firm to open a cryonic storage facility Down Under. The non-profit has built a sophisticated facility in the New South Wales town of Holbrook - you can check out the first stage of its construction below:
But if you want to be in with a chance of having your body stored at the site, you might want to start saving up now, as it'll set you back a whopping AU $150,000 (£85,000).
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According to the company's website, however, this sum is payable at the time of the deep freeze and is often paid through life insurance.
As it stands, the facility only has enough space to store 40 bodies, but it intends on building warehouses capable of storing up to 600 in the future.
With all cryogenic freezing, corpses are stored headfirst in liquid nitrogen in steel chambers at around -200C, and the reason they are stored feet up is to maximise chances of brain preservation.
According to the company's website, there are three steps to joining, the first being signing up as a subscriber or associate member of the company, which involves filling out a membership form and costs $350 (£200) a year.
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The second step, described as a 'big one', is as follows: "Complete the agreement for future suspension. Obtain life insurance or organise other payment methods.
"As well as the agreement, complete the next-of-kin, informed consent, and religious objection to autopsy documents. This step is only available to subscribers/associate members. We will of course assist with all the requirements of this step."
Last but not least is to organise the 'standby, stabilisation and transportation', which is typically done through CryoPath, a company that carries out procedures to ensure the body is suspended in good condition in order to minimise brain damage.
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As for what might happen if/when science does find a way to revive them, Southern Cryonics states: "Of course, no one precisely knows the answer to this.
"We can however speculate based on the developments in science and medicine going on now and expected to 'snowball' into the future."
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Daisy Phillipson