Spacecraft, Heal Thyself

carpdeus writes "The European Space Agency, citing the fact that we don't glue ourselves together when we nick ourselves, has funded a study toward creating a spacecraft that could fix itself. By replacing a few of the fibers in the resinous material that make up a spacecraft's skin with hollow fibers containing adhesive, the material has a chance to fix itself when it encounters minor damage, much the way our skin does when blood wells up and clots. While admittedly years away, such material makes longer duration missions a possibility."

Comments

Re:What about the guts?

[RodgerTheGreat]

How about making use of decentralized computing systems? I'm aware that not all instruments could be "backed-up" with this method, but by distributing a cluster of computers around the vehicle that could assume new functions on-the-fly, you could theoretically absorb a great deal of damage.

Re:Interesting, but is it really Practical

[Tx]

The key word in the article is "minor". This would work for small abrasions, but would it really be useful? Think of all the accidents in space we have had so far. None of them would have been prevented by this technology.

We haven't done a lot of long duration spaceflight yet. As the larger-than-expected particles collected by the Stardust mission show, cumulative minor damage could be a major issue for flights lasting years, so I'd say yes, it will be useful.

More like a self-sealing fuel tanks

[Animats]

Self-sealing aircraft fuel tanks date back to WWII. This is a comparable level of self-repair: a material that expands to fill and seal gaps.