Power Generating Spacesuits

Maggie McKee writes "Piezoelectric sensors could help power future space missions. Astronauts' spacesuits may one day be covered in motion-sensitive proteins that could generate power from the astronauts' movement, according to futuristic research being conducted by a new lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US. Such 'power skins' could also be used to coat future human bases on Mars, where they could produce energy from the Martian wind. Eventually, the biologically derived suits might even be able to heal themselves."

Wouldn't this make it harder to move?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeing you can't get energy for free, and you can't even break even, wouldn't this just add to the resistance one would need to overcome to move?

Why piezo-electric?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Given that no machine has 100% efficiency, these generators cant produce more energy than what the astronauts muscles could deliver. So dont confuse these with generating power like in solar cells or nuclear reactors. But there is always need for electrical energy so they might come in handy. But why these piezo-electrics? I have seen WW-II era footage of soldiers ing tiny generators by hand or by legs to power their radio sets.

The apocryphal story of NASA spending millions of dollars to invent a pressurized ball point pen that would work in zero gravity and USSR deciding to use a pencil comes to my mind.

STOP!!! Physics 101 says....

[nickull]

Energy is neither created nor destroyed. How can someone seriously think this is free energy? An astronauts energy comes from somewhere so the chain is biomass->digest(chemical process)->kinetic->electricity? Reminds me of the old question "you are in space with a chicken, some grain and an egg. What should you do?" A: Eat the chicken before it eats the grain, then make a grain omlette. On the counter side of my rant, this may solve the problem of astronaut musculas atrophy by making every movement a bit harder.

The energy doesn't come from nowhere

[EmbeddedJanitor]

This means that the astronaut will have to work harder (consuming more fuel/oxygen, generating more waste heat that needs to be processed). A human working flat out is only good for a few hundred watts. In space that would be hard to achieve. Anyone who has tried doing hard physical work in weightlessness will tell you how difficult that is. I have not worked in space, but I have worked underwater which was pretty difficult.

Sure this would give them a much needed work-out, but that is far better to do inside where there is better oxygen supply, waste heat/water processing etc.. Rather use an exercise bike driving a generator which is likely to be far more efficient.

Basically this sounds far more like a solution looking for a problem that anything really useful.

Re:Why piezo-electric?

[Eevee]

The apocryphal story of NASA spending millions of dollars to invent a pressurized ball point pen that would work in zero gravity and USSR deciding to use a pencil comes to my mind.

apocryphal - Definition: Of questionable authenticity; spurious.

I'm curious why you would use a story you know is fake [snopes.com] for support? Gutsy move admiting it, though.

While it's true these can not produce more energy than the astronaut's muscles can produce, that isn't relevant for a lot of applications. For example, there are wristwatches that autowind themselves from the wearer's motions during the day--it's not taking a lot of energy from the movement, but it doesn't require much. In the ame way, you could power devices with low but constant requirements, such as monitors for vital statistics, without having to worry about charging batteries. (Not that I'm saying that would be an ideal application, as a watch battery would sound more suitable to me; but then, I'm not an engineer for NASA.)

Energy efficiency, not generation.

[aibrahim]

There is a lot of complaining that this will make the suits harder to bend and a number of other non-sense.

The point is that a lot of energy is already wasted by normal movement. It goes into things like crushing your shirt sleeves, friction, sound etc.

You have to make the space suits out of something... it may as well be something that can recapture energy normally wasted in motion.

Some have brought up the notion that these types of devices use more energy to make than they can capture. If it costs more energy to make the suits than they can generate... well that is irrelevant. The energy would be expended on Earth, so the mission gains some energy efficiency for "free." This becomes a consideration only if the suit has to be manufactured during the mission... perhaps as a replacement.

Don't get me wrong... this is far from the primary way to get energy. Take the example from the article of using this to generate energy from the Martian wind. Instead we might use this "wind mill" technology. However, if you have wind buffeting a static structure, it makes some sense to capture some of that energy if (and that's a huge IF) you can do so just by changing the materials used on the exterior. It may make more sense to coat the windmills with this stuff, and build the shelters underground.

Umm.....

[urban_warrior]

wouldn't using the little piezoelectric crystals used in microphones and certain watches to produce electricity from motion be a lot simpler then trying to figure out a way to get proteins from our ears to do the same job a lot less efficiently ? Sounds like a waste of research funds to me!

Re:The energy doesn't come from nowhere

[PeolesDru]

Even more so - It's like the guy who wanted to generate power from the falling water in his rain gutters - who stands outside all day spraying water on his roof.