death coaster
Death drop: Riders of the 'Euthanasia Coaster' would die from experiencing 10 g-force for one minute.
Not content with designing rollercoasters for the living, a Lithuanian designer has created plans for a 'death rollercoaster' that would provide a 'euphoric' way for people to kill themselves.

Lithuanian artist Julijonas Urbonas says the killing machine will end people's lives with 'euphoria and pleasure'.

But a top brain expert has said the mechanism is more likely to leave people feeling sick.

The rollercoaster, which was designed while Urbonas was a PhD candidate at the Royal College of Art, uses 'extreme g-force' to kill people as they hurtle down 500 metres to reach a speed of 100 metres per second (g-force 10) on seven loop-de-loops.

'Your blood is rushed to your lower extremities so there is a lack of blood in your brain, so your brain starts to suffocate. When your brain starts to suffocate, people become euphoric

'Usually pilots experience such extreme forces for just a few seconds, but riders in the rollercoaster experience it for one minute and nobody has experienced this for such a long time,' he said when presenting the design.

'Unfortunately, the likelihood of any pleasure and euphoria being produced is low; nausea and discomfort would be more probable,' Dr Damasio wrote on the Design and Violence blog message board run by New York's Museum of Modern Art which exhibited the design last summer.

The Lithuanian designer said his death machine could help 'control populations' and let people leave the world with a thrill.

Urbonas, who says he has been in roller coaster development since childhood, insists the project is more of an artistic expression and it's peoples' reactions to the rollercoaster that he finds most interesting.

'Some of them say that the death coaster changed the way they experience amusement rides, others claim they would never ride coasters again,' he wrote in response to Dr Damasio's critique.

Defending his design, he also said the machine could counter 'boring' methods of euthanasia used in countries where the practise is legal.

'It [euthanasia] is executed in an extremely boring fashion, proposing 'humane' voluntary death could be more meaningful, personal, ritualistic,' he wrote, while pointing out that he is not advocating for assisted suicide.
seat on death coaster
Death seat: The 'prototype' is couloured black and has just one seat per ride.
He adds that although the euphoric feeling that comes from 'GLOK or G-force induced Loss Of Consciousness' would also be accompanied by nausea and discomfort, it would not last long.

'The talk on pleasure could also extend to exhilarating sensations that lure millions coaster fans. In addition to these physiological pleasures, I want to stress, the death coaster hints at the possibility for a specific kind of semantic pleasure: an alternative ritualized death appealing to both the individual and the mourning public,' he writes.

'Of course, it is not for everybody, very much like thrill rides and horror movies.'

But before you panic don't worry - the contraption hasn't been built (except for a scale model).