A controversial 3D-printed death machine designed to send people to the afterlife peacefully will be 'tested' by the public for the first time.

The 'Sarco' is the creation of 70-year-old Australian euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke, also known as 'Dr Death'.

When a button is pressed, the Sarco will fill with nitrogen, resulting in the person losing consciousness after one minute and dying after five minutes.

It will be unveiled at the Amsterdam Funeral Fair on Saturday, where attendees can get a glimpse into what it will be like to step in the Sarco using a virtual reality headset.

However, the plans have already been met with outrage with the machine being described as 'gruesome' and 'glamorising suicide'.

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A controversial 3D-printed death machine designed to send people to the afterlife peacefully will be 'tested' by the public for the first time. However, the plans have already been met with outrage with the machine being described as 'gruesome' and 'glamorising suicide'

The Sarco is a 3D-printable machine that kills people by hypoxia when oxygen levels are scarce.

A person who wants to use Nitschke's machine to commit suicide has to do an online test to show that they are sane and want to die of their own will.

They then receive a four-digit code that is valid for 24 hours. After entering the code into the machine, a special button can be pressed to begin the process.

A funeral fair spokesman said that visitors 'can undergo the entire experience with virtual reality glasses to see if this could be a preferred life ending for them.'

Through the virtual glasses, the visitors can choose a view of the Alps or the sea as their last moment.

They then press the suicide button, after which the sight with their virtual reality glasses will slowly turn black.

The 'Sarco' is the creation of 70-year-old Australian euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke, also known as 'Dr Death' (pictured)

Dr Nitschke developed the Sarco with engineer Alexander Bannick in the Netherlands, with the aim of making it available worldwide.

Rather than looking for a 'dignified' death, Dr Nitschke says it could a 'euphoric' experience.

'What if we dared to imagine that our last day on this planet might also be one of our most exciting?' he wrote in an in-depth feature for Huffington Post.

'It can be transported wherever one chooses', Dr Nitschke explains, for example facing the Rockies or looking out over the Pacific Ocean.

HOW DOES NITROGEN KILL AND WHAT WOULD YOU FEEL BEFORE DEATH? Nitrogen makes up roughly 78 per cent of 'normal' air. Oxygen, the gas essential for life, makes up around 20 per cent. If the oxygen percentage falls below ten per cent, it can be deadly. Nitrogen gas causes death through a process called 'nitrogen asphyxiation' via the odourless, colourless and tasteless gas. The gas is completely undetectable to human senses, and so in theory you're unlikely to feel a thing. But that has not stopped campaigners from arguing that its prospective use for capital punishment purposes is inhumane and must not be allowed. They argue that there is not sufficiently strong evidence to prove the safety and legality of the new process. Campaigners also say that many things can go wrong when the state seeks to terminate involuntarily the life of someone who wants to live, who will be struggling determinedly and trying not to breathe. Normally, when a person suffocates they will experience severe pain as carbon dioxide builds up in the bloodstream. Nitrogen gas does not cause this build up of CO2, so there should be no discomfort preceding death. To perform nitrogen asphyxiation as capital punishment, the condemned would be sealed in an airtight chamber pumped full of the gas. This would cause a painless death by lack of oxygen. People do die accidentally of nitrogen asphyxiation, and usually they never know what hit them. It may even be possible that death by nitrogen gas is mildly euphoric. For instance, deep-sea divers exposed to too much nitrogen develop a narcosis known as 'raptures of the deep,' which feels similar to being drunk. Advertisement

Dr Nitschke developed the Sarco (pictured) with engineer Alexander Bannick in the Netherlands, with the aim of making it available worldwide

'As I say in my workshops, 'You're only going to die once, so why not have the best?'', he said.

But the introduction of the death machine has been met with heavy criticism from politicians and social workers.

A spokesman for Dutch suicide prevention hotline 113 said: 'All of this seems completely unwanted to us.'

MP Kees an der Staaij of the Christian-conservative Reformed Political Party (SGP) said: 'It is gruesome.

'All of us together try to do everything to prevent suicide and then you find a suicide machine on the funeral fair like it is the most normal case in the world. Suicide is not a promotional offer and aiding with suicide is a criminal offence in the Netherlands.'

Dr Philip Nitschke is pictured in 1996 displaying his first ever 'death machine' in his home in Darwin, Australia. The machine was used by the first person in the world to die under voluntary euthanasia legislation

MP Carla Dik-Faber of the Christian Union: 'I find it bizarre and worrying that companies are promoting machines which lead to death at a fair.'

Dr Peter Saunders, campaign director at Care Not Killing Alliance told MailOnline Dr Nitschke's 'shameless promotion of suicide as an answer to life's problems puts the lives of vulnerable elderly, depressed and disabled people at grave risk'.

'He is on public record as promoting assisted suicide to anyone who wants it, 'including the depressed, the elderly bereaved, (and) the troubled teen' and runs seminars where he advises on the sourcing, supply and use of barbiturates, helium, nitrogen and other means to end one's life', he said.

'This runs the additional danger of glamorising suicide and promoting suicide contagion and breaches both national and international guidelines on suicide prevention', he said.

Dr Nitschke, who said he never plans to charge for the Sarco design, said that if it came to a point in his own life when he needed to consider euthanasia, he would chose to do it in the machine.

The doctor first got involved in euthanasia in 1995 when Australia passed a law allowing a doctor to end the life of a terminally ill patient at the patient's request

'I'm a bit attracted to the nature of the Sarco, and making it a symbolic event,' he said.

The doctor first got involved in euthanasia in 1995 when Australia passed a law allowing a doctor to end the life of a terminally ill patient at the patient's request.

He was one of the few in the medical profession who supported the new legislation and he performed his first assisted death in 1996. Australia repealed the law shortly afterwards, in 1997.

During the brief time it was legal in Australia, Dr Nitschke created his first death machine that he called 'the Deliverance.'

It was a laptop hooked up to an IV that allowed a patient to administer the deadly drugs after answering a few questions. He said that it allowed him to take a step back from the process, so the patient died surrounded by family, not doctors.

Since then, technology has moved on and he hopes that his Sarco design will offer a more 'elegant' solution.

If you or anyone you know is in need of confidential support, call the National Suicide Prevention Line in the US on 1-800-273-8255 or visit its website. In the UK, contact Samaritans on 116 123.