Coronavirus: We must Use NASA Ingenuity to Jumpstart Economy

Space helmets are the answer, let me explain.

What would you be willing to do today that you wouldn’t have 3 months ago to get your kids back in school, socialize with friends without being six feet apart, working and earning money, traveling, visiting elderly loved ones, enjoying the way of life before COVID-19?

Probably safe to say, it would be anything.

Why can’t we enjoy the liberties we used to enjoy? It’s one simple thing.

Humans touch our faces and also, spray droplets when we talk, cough or sneeze.

When we touch our faces, as we now all know, we endanger ourselves and we endanger others. These two are completely tied together.

So, to protect those and against those who touch their faces a lot, we all have to pay the price. Everyone has to social distance, and the safest and easiest way governments have conducted that is to send everyone into their homes.

This is long distance social distancing. But if no human ever touched our faces and ever sprayed droplets, we could micro social distance, right?

Washing our hands is key, but that’s simply to reduce the infection probability because we all touch our faces. Back to touching faces…

Just to beat this horse before moving on, in theory if I don’t get sprayed by human droplets, I can soak my hands in a bucket of coronavirus, go about my business all day and never get sick if I never touch my face. And if no one else ever touches their faces, no handrail that I touch could also get them sick.

So how do we allow people to micro socially distance? Currently we are socially distanced by dozens or hundreds of meters. Thus we can’t go to school, the movies, work.

But if we prevent people from touching their faces or spraying droplets, we could all come out of our homes?

How do I spray or get sprayed and touch my face in this thing?

This is a mock design of a full face snorkel. I posted this photo because I agree 100% with a very smart friend and mentor I’ve had for years — @brianmacdonald, CEO of Predpol. Several people have said we could accomplish this by outfitting everyone with N95 and goggles. But there is exposure to face (kids would create more vulnerability this way) and more importantly, for global adoption, Brian and I believe that FASHION will be critical. However you feel about it, it’s the world we live in.

Let’s make this fashionable. Have celebrities endorse wearing them. Make them cool. Be cool and save lives!

Afterall, when our grandkids are living on Mars, everyone will be wearing something like this anyway. Likely fitted with VR and much more.

If there was a lightweight, comfortable, well ventilated, fog resistant, audible and cheap contraption like this, couldn’t we micro socially distance?

I can safely socially distance to within an inch of my face instead of all the way back to my home!

Could our kindergarteners who we can’t trust with instructions to never touch their faces go to school? If they can go to school, all of us can do everything we used to.

Okay, maybe Steph Curry can’t play basketball in this so not everything goes back to life as normal but most essential things can.

We may get people back to day to day life, school and work faster with such a device. And further down the road, could this become a household emergency appliance? Similar to a fire extinguisher, each member stores a face guard for air pollution, smoke from wildfires and yes, future viral and bacterial outbreaks.

Aside from the engineering challenges that I’m not qualified to validate, some thoughts.

Usage Logistics

There definitely are some logistics to figure out — best practices that everyone must adhere to, and honor code does play into this.

1. These must be worn in public spaces at all times. It will be country by country likely, but social pressure probably will enforce aided by law enforcement if a nation allows.
2. Eating and drinking. Taking the frontmask on and off must be done with a strict protocol — like a surgeon prepping and disposing. Thoughtful protocols like more lunch shifts at schools and work so people can sit far apart while eating.
   Constant drinking would require some attachment perhaps, Camelback?
3. Cleaning — once at home, follow the removal protocol and clean to be made safe for use next time.
4. Bathroom. Probably many indirect costs become introduced, but one may be that people are less careful about touching handrails and such. So in addition to continued PSAs on hand washing, now add handwashing before and after using the bathroom. Hopefully many already do this, it’s just good hygiene. Like not touching your face.

Will this be 100% foolproof? No. Will it flatten the curve, possibly as much or more than asking everyone to stay at home and never socialize and work?

You bet.

And if it does, does the economy come roaring back to life? Definitely.

Updated for March 25, 2020, several independent design and manufacturing organizations are off and running thinking and prototyping. Great! Should this be a super cheap, low tech guard to outfit the masses? Or should it be a high tech helmet like product with built in cooling, ventilation, filtration, speakers for audio and plugged in each night? A device that the wealthy and business owners afford first but purchase for employees and eventually the masses through government subsidies?

Not sure, but it would be fun to find out if enough smart, creative experts come together to brainstorm and get to work.

In Practice Today

Asia is already doing a lightweight version of this. It’s completely accepted to wear surgical masks in public. That inconvenience allows people to work, socialize to a greater degree, go to the movies. But kids can’t go to school in places like Korea.

Kids can’t go to school because surgical masks aren’t foolproof — droplets still get in and out in the right conditions. And surgical masks have no eye protection. So then you have brilliant inventors like this.

Genius

So where do we go from here?

Rapid prototyping. Yes, this sounds hard and expensive. But if SpaceX can sent a shuttle into outer space, have it turn around and land safely back on earth, we can’t do this?

Don’t we have similar products already in use today?

There are a lot of reasons why this sounds crazy. Including social rejection. Cost. What else you got?

Let’s talk about the cost of not doing this (or something like this). Never mind, go back to any of my earlier posts. The cost of not doing anything to allow people to micro socially distance is MASSIVE. Incalculable. In terms of dollars, physical and mental illnesses, lives.

If GM and Ford are considering manufacturing ventilators and N95 masks, why can’t we prototype a working frontmask that works.

Then open source it so every manufacturer in every country can get to work now. Is this a multi-billion dollar start-up idea? Maybe, but who cares about that right now.

We need to get the right people together to see if this is viable — engineers, ventilation experts, materials experts. audio specialists, manufacturers.

And if not, couldn’t those experts possibly discover another way to allow us all to micro socially distance?

What if in 3 months when this mess has peaked in most major countries, masks are available in enough quantity that we can get people back to work. Isn’t that where healing starts?

Can you please share to your networks? We need to reach government and private sector leaders who take interest and take it from there! Feel free to give out my email if my thoughts can be helpful — edhan235@gmai.com. Thank you!