Dune Spacesuit Inspires Engineers

The iconic costumes from Dune have inspired the creation of a new spacesuit prototype that can turn urine into drinking water, allowing astronauts to no longer wear diapers during long spacewalks.

In the Dune In the universe, special suits absorb moisture from sweat and urination, filtering it for reuse. Researchers at Cornell University believe such a system would be very useful for astronauts, who are currently forced to use uncomfortable diapers that can leak, smell bad and even cause infections.

Sophia Etlin, researcher at Weill Cornell Medicinesaid that after reading DuneShe was struck by the idea of ​​a spacesuit. This inspired her to create a startup, Fremen Space, Inc.. at Cornell, who brought the idea to fruition. The design includes an external vacuum catheter and a reverse osmosis unit that provides a constant supply of drinking water with many safety features for astronauts.

Astronauts in modern spacesuits can also drink water, but its volume does not exceed one liter, which is not enough for long spacewalks. The new spacesuit will have soft fabric underwear with a silicone bowl to collect urine. A vacuum pump is activated by moisture and pumps urine to a filtration system that removes all impurities and harmful salts. The filtered water is enriched with electrolytes and fed into the drinking system.

Unlike the Dune In the spacesuits, astronauts will use a 20.5-volt battery to power the system, which weighs about 8 kilograms and can purify half a liter of water in five minutes. The first prototype filters only urine, but future versions could include a sweat filter.

The engineering team plans to recruit 100 volunteers in New York this fall to test the convenience and functionality of the first prototype.

Earlier we talked about the five main stars of the Dune universe.

Based on documents from techspot.com