The COVID-19 pandemic was felt globally, halting major operations and locking people inside their homes due to the virus. A NASA veteran is prepping for the next pandemic by designing new protective gear.
MQ Suit For The Next Pandemic
Whether it's a fungus that transforms us all into homicidal zombies, a tick-borne hemorrhagic fever, or possibly a horrible pathogen we can't even comprehend, the pandemics are coming for us.
A garment dubbed the MQ suit-short for "mobile quarantine" - was created by Lawrence Kuznetz, a science-fiction novelist and 40-year NASA veteran. It would allow people to quarantine in a crowded space, a busy hospital, or at home with family, Nautilus reported.
When the COVID-19 pandemic was at its deadliest, Kunzetz had the inspiration for the suit. Having spent the previous 22 years creating a Mars suit, he realized he could reuse many components to create the ideal pandemic garment-sterilizing, reusable, lightweight, and affordable.
After meeting an investor, Kuznetz assembled the initial prototype by hand. He recently presented it to a small audience during a recent session at the University of California, San Diego.
According to Kuznetz, a spacesuit made for Mars was a much superior model than one made for the moon because Mars is much more similar to Earth. It has gravity, a weather system, and an atmosphere. Typically, spacesuits for the moon, where gravity's pull is weak, weigh more than 300 pounds. It would be difficult to carry so much weight on Mars or on Earth.
According to Kuznetz, the idea behind his design is that you will wear the suit for roughly 14 days following exposure, depending on whether you experience symptoms.
It would be best if you took off the faceplate to eat. Wearers have two options for taking care of business: either unzipping the rear to use a regular restroom or use the same portable waste-management gear that astronauts employ, which consists of a urine-containment device and an absorbent liner for defecation that may be worn in shifts of eight hours.
More About the MQ Suit
According to Grant Anderson, president and co-founder of Paragon Space Development Corporation, which collaborated with Kuznetz to develop the temperature-regulating aspects of his Mars suit a few years ago, keeping wearers cool is one of the toughest issues with a garment like this. This is because when people breathe, they also exhale moisture in addition to carbon dioxide, and the majority of less expensive methods of eliminating moisture from a system include absorption processes that generate heat. Anderson said this ends up with the user breathing environments that get hotter and hotter.
A lithium-ion battery powers the oxygen circulation, filtration, and cooling systems of the MQ suit, which weighs around 1.5 pounds and costs $200 or less. To reduce the chance of losing oxygen and the suit catching fire, a pressured CO2 filtering and cooling system in the body suit is separated from a pressurized oxygen circulation and cooling system in the helmet.
The suit has adjustable super-HEPA air filters that may be configured to guard against any biological infections that may endanger us. It is made of Tyvec, a synthetic material resistant to bacteria and aging.
The traditional protective suits worn by medical staff during the COVID-19 pandemic cost only $10 to $15 each, but because they had to be thrown away at the end of each day, the cost per person quickly rose to thousands of dollars.
Before the MQ suit becomes a reality, work must be done, and the FDA must approve it. However, hopefully, that moment will arrive before the next pandemic does.
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