Ettinger died in his home in the Detroit suburb of Clinton Township. His health had been declining in recent weeks, his son David Ettinger said. Ettinger’s body became the 106th to be stored at the Cryonics Institute which he founded in 1976.
Etiinger, the son of Jewish immigrants, served in the U.S. military during World War II and was severely wounded in battle in Germany. While recuperating in hospitals, Ettinger nurtured the idea of preserving life through technology.
Ettinger who grew up on Science fiction was especially inspired by a Neil R. Jones story, “The Jameson Satellite, which he read when he was 12. The tale, about a man who has his corpse placed into orbit in the belief that the cold of outer space would preserve him and was discovered millions of years later by an advanced race of aliens who put the man’s brains in a mechanical body, got Ettinger brooding on the possibilities of cryonics in the 1930′s. It was Ettinger’s founding document on cryonics, “The Prospect of Immortality” that made him an overnight celebrity and garner a lot of media attention. Following the publication of the document, which describes the practical and moral aspects of deep-freezing the dead, Ettinger made a lot of television appearances with David Frost, Johnny Carson, Steve Allen, among others.
Article source: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/186694/20110726/robert-ettinger-cryonics-immortality.htm