I knew this couldn't be my own original idea, dam! Just kidding, it's good to see that I'm not the only Frank Herbert disciple here. I think it's just such an obvious and appropriate theme for BM, "We are desert creatures".
It sure took me long enough to find this thread though! Before I found you, my woman and I decided that it was absolutely mandatory that by 09 we have good stillsuites, and dress her VW bus up as a sandworm.
I am a welder, and so far was thinking about building a metal/plywood platform on top of the bus; with hook anchor points, a lighter frame around the rest of the bus, and extending out in front as an open mouth. Cover this with chicken wire and sandworm scales. (modified roofing shingles?)
The bus could pull a train of light weight trailers, (recycled bikes?) covered with a hoop greenhouse type structure.
I and some of my paintball playing friends were trying to design cooling stillsuites, to keep us from overheating while engaging in 110 degree combat in protective padding. We started talking first about cpu fans blowing air threw ducts in the suite. Then we thought, put the fan in an insulated butt-pack with an icepack and recirculate the air. Then we noticed that we were already carrying butt-packs with tanks of compressed CO2; and remembered that when you rapidly decompress gas it becomes a refrigerant. (As anyone who has iced over their barrel going full-auto knows.) So far the best concept we could think of, is to vent small bursts of gas out tubes wrapped around the body, and sandwiched between tubes holding drinking water. This could allow you to refrigerate both your body and your water, simply by squeezing a small push valve; and without electricity! Still trying to figure out what the best tubing to use would be?
This is the best pics I could find online of stillsuites and such:
http://www.arrakis.co.uk/colpage14.html