Stillsuit
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A stillsuit is a body suit designed by the Fremen in Frank Herbert's Dune universe to maintain their body moisture in the harsh desert environment of the planet Arrakis.
In Terminology of the Imperium, the glossary of the novel Dune, Herbert provides the following definition:
STILLSUIT: body-enclosing garment invented on Arrakis. Its fabric is a micro-sandwich performing functions of heat dissipation and filter for bodily wastes. Reclaimed moisture is made available by tube from catchpockets.
The stillsuit also draws perspiration away from the body and collects it, and pumps built into the heels of the suit drive the filtering mechanism.[1]
In Dune, as the planetologist Liet-Kynes is assisting Paul Atreides with the fitting of his stillsuit, he explains the suit in this manner:
It's basically a micro-sandwich — a high-efficiency filter and heat-exchange system. The skin-contact layer's porous. Perspiration passes through it, having cooled the body ... near-normal evaporation process. The next two layers . . . include heat exchange filaments and salt precipitators. Salt's reclaimed. Motions of the body, especially breathing and some osmotic action provide the pumping force. Reclaimed water circulates to catchpockets from which you draw it through this tube in the clip at your neck... Urine and feces are processed in the thigh pads. In the open desert, you wear this filter across your face, this tube in the nostrils with these plugs to insure a tight fit. Breathe in through the mouth filter, out through the nose tube. With a Fremen suit in good working order, you won't lose more than a thimbleful of moisture a day...
Use of stillsuits became practically nonexistent as Arrakis became more and more verdant under the rule of Leto Atreides II, except as cheaply made replicas. However, after his death, the sandtrout released from his body began to undo the terraforming, returning Arrakis to its desert state and making stillsuits necessary once more.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Derek Lowe notes in his May 20, 2005 article "Outside Reading" that "A more technically inclined geek would have realized the physics problem that Frank Herbert sort of, er, skipped over. The major point of sweating in hot weather is evaporative cooling. What happens when you trap that moisture and try to recycle it? Condensative heating, that's what, which you don't hear about as much but is as real as the laws of thermodynamics can make it. A stillsuit would cook you like a crock-pot."
