What should USMS do about the suits?

Fans of tech suits: Don't despair, just be patient. I did a little literature search on the current state of research on superhydrophobic textiles. There is a lot happening there! Some is exactly what I thought might be involved - the use of nanaoparticles that end up on the surface of textile fibers, drastically reducing the coefficient of friction. There is a lot of research being done on this, and eventually I expect it will lead to suits that are just as good as the ones being banned, and virtually indistinguishable from today's textiles used for allowed suits. There was research reported in this month's Physics Today about modifications to the surface shape at the all-important viscous boundary layer that can reduce the friction even further. There are a lot of steps between today's research and tomorrow's ultra fast suits, but I have no doubt they will occur. Buoyancy may be a different matter, but I suspect there's a way there too. I will maintain again that once the technology cat is let out of the bag, you can't get it back in (unless we stop wearing suits altogether :afraid:). Today's suits being banned are just the fruits of the first wave of technology being applied to the fabrics. There will be more waves, and the current research base makes it obvious to me that they will succeed. It's not an un-natural thing either, as there are superhydrophobic plant surfaces, where the plant has evolved the property as part of its natural evolutionary process. I sincerely expect there to be a time when people look back and wonder why we bothered to ban today's suit technology, when it will come back anyway. It is not just the materials used that determines how low the friction is, it is the shape of the fibers, the structure of their surfaces, etc. The use of polyurethane and neoprene are just the simple, first order, techniques available to make suits faster. This area of research is important to more fields than just swimming (which is probably the least important), and I have no doubt it will bear fruit. I firmly believe fast suits will be back. It will just take a little while for the research to transfer all the way to production.

Fans of tech suits: Don't despair, just be patient. I did a little literature search on the current state of research on superhydrophobic textiles. There is a lot happening there! Some is exactly what I thought might be involved - the use of nanaoparticles that end up on the surface of textile fibers, drastically reducing the coefficient of friction. There is a lot of research being done on this, and eventually I expect it will lead to suits that are just as good as the ones being banned, and virtually indistinguishable from today's textiles used for allowed suits. There was research reported in this month's Physics Today about modifications to the surface shape at the all-important viscous boundary layer that can reduce the friction even further. There are a lot of steps between today's research and tomorrow's ultra fast suits, but I have no doubt they will occur. Buoyancy may be a different matter, but I suspect there's a way there too. I will maintain again that once the technology cat is let out of the bag, you can't get it back in (unless we stop wearing suits altogether :afraid:). Today's suits being banned are just the fruits of the first wave of technology being applied to the fabrics. There will be more waves, and the current research base makes it obvious to me that they will succeed. It's not an un-natural thing either, as there are superhydrophobic plant surfaces, where the plant has evolved the property as part of its natural evolutionary process. I sincerely expect there to be a time when people look back and wonder why we bothered to ban today's suit technology, when it will come back anyway. It is not just the materials used that determines how low the friction is, it is the shape of the fibers, the structure of their surfaces, etc. The use of polyurethane and neoprene are just the simple, first order, techniques available to make suits faster. This area of research is important to more fields than just swimming (which is probably the least important), and I have no doubt it will bear fruit. I firmly believe fast suits will be back. It will just take a little while for the research to transfer all the way to production.