On Sat, 26 Aug 2000, Damien Broderick wrote:
>
> Is an Arakis still-suit permissible? In fact, is such a thing yet
> technically feasible? I assume this would be a closed garment that used
> incident and body heat to evaporate sweat, capture it (and urine) and
> somehow sequester the wastes, returning warm water via a mouth tube,
> capillary flow presumably powered by the motion of the limbs.
My intuition suggests that there is a thermodynamics problem with this,
at least as far as keeping the body cool goes. In a hot climate, sweat
would either have to be collected before it evaporates (preventing the
cooling effect) or the evaporated sweat would have to re-radiate the heat
it has absorbed (impossible to do passively if the ambient temperature is
above the body temperature), again effectively negating the cooling
effect. Actively powered systems would work, but defeat the purpose.
Basically, wearing such a system would be like wearing a wetsuit on a hot
summer day; you would overheat very quickly.
Which illustrates the point of why we sweat in the first place; if it was
not a priority for survival, the body would conserve water and keep
us hydrated instead.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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