While the premise of that book was "way out there", (at least 235,000 miles), the nanotechnology is coming! News of targeted enzymes which will find and destroy Hepatitus C virus cells shows where we are in the genetic world. The genome is now a published fact and as a new generation of scientists marry the two technologies who can tell. Is the "long life treatments" of mid 20th Cnetury Sci Fi writers to be achieved by Mid 21st Century?