Warner Bros.
The Fremen inhabit the harsh desert world of Frank Herbert’s Arrakis. Sand Dunes Astronauts will have to rely on full-body “stillsuits” to survive, which recycle absorbed sweat and urine into drinking water. Now science fiction is becoming science fact. Researchers at Cornell University have designed a prototype stillsuit for astronauts that recycles urine into drinking water during spacewalks, reports the US scientific journal Science Fiction. New paper The results were published in the journal “Frontiers in Space Technologies.”
Herbert is stillsuit design When planetary scientist Reit Kynes explained this technology to Duke Reit Atreides I,
It’s basically a microsandwich, a highly efficient filter and heat exchange system. The layer in contact with the skin is porous. Sweat passes through it, cooling the body… more or less a normal evaporation process. The next two layers contain… heat exchange filaments and salt precipitators. Salt is collected. Pumping power is provided by body movements, especially breathing and osmotic action. The collected water circulates to a catch pocket, from where it is sucked in through a tube in a neck clip… urine and feces are handled in thigh pads. In the desert, you wear this filter over your face, insert this tube into your nostrils, and put plugs on them to make a snug fit. You breathe in through the filter in your mouth and exhale through the tube in your nose. If your Fremen suit is working properly, you won’t lose more than a thimble of water a day…
of Illustrated Encyclopedia of Sand Dunes I interpreted the stillsuit as a kind of protective gear that doesn’t cover the whole face. In David Lynch’s 1984 film, Sand Dunesthe steel suit was more organic and fitted to the body than the book description, almost like a second skin.Dune Part 1 and part 2) sought to get even closer to the raw materials by using “microsandwiches” of acrylic fibers and porous cotton with embedded tubes to increase flexibility.
Universal Pictures
The Cornell team isn’t the first to attempt to build a practical stationary suit. Hacksmith Industries “Make a still suit in a day” last monthThe team, which has previously worked on projects like Thor’s Stormbreaker axe, Captain America’s electromagnetic shield, and plasma-powered lightsabers, skipped the unpleasant aspect of recycling urine and waste and focused on recycling moisture from sweat and breath.
Their version features a waterproof baggy suit (which changes to a more form-fitting bunny suit in the final version) and a battery-powered heat exchanger on the back. Moisture condenses on the suit’s surface and drips into a bottle attached to a CamelBak bladder. A filter mask is attached to the tube, allowing the wearer to inhale filtered air, but only one way; exhaled air is redirected to a condenser, which collects moisture in the CamelBak bladder, which is then pumped back into the mask for the user to drink. In terms of efficiency, it’s nowhere near the daily thimbleful that Herbert mentioned, as it mainly recycles moisture from sweat on the wearer’s back, but it works.
