If such advances take longer, on the order of 100 or more years, however, patients would not have such immediate social support in the contemporary world. Some, like Kowalski, are getting around this by simply sticking together: he, his wife and their children have all signed up for cryogenic suspension. Indeed, lifetime members of the Cryonics Institute can enroll their spouse for half price, and underage children are free. “We do that to encourage the family unit to stay together,” Kowalski says.

But even if a cryogenically preserved person was on his or her own, Kowalaski does not think that would necessarily be a deal breaker for eventually attaining happiness. As he puts it: “If you were on an airplane today with all your family and friends and it crashed and you’re the only survivor, would you commit suicide? Or would you go out and put your life back together, and make new family and friends?”

Other cryogenically revived people would be a good starting point for replacing lost connections. Like refugees arriving in a new country, communities of formerly vitrified persons would likely bond around their shared experience and temporal origins.

Where members of those communities would live or how they would support themselves are other unanswered questions. “If they arrive and don’t know much and don’t have any income, they’re going to have to be cared for,” says Daniel Callahan, co-founder and senior research scholar at the Hastings Center, a research institution dedicated to bioethics and health policy. “Who’s going to do that?”

In an attempt to anticipate these needs, the Cryonics Institute invests a fraction of patient fees – currently $28,000 with life insurance – into stocks and bonds. The hope is that future returns can help revived persons get back on their feet, so to speak.