Kapton tape is being used to hold Astronaut Piers Seller's safety-jet backpack latches in place when they make their next spacewalk on Wednesday. This tape is like duct tape but slippery and able to withstand both frigid cold and fiery hot temperatures. I'm way behind on this stuff, its been around 40 years apparently.

Somebody put it in layman's lingo: What is this stuff? Is it already in front of my nose under a different brand or name? Would this stuff have any place in a PSK or other survival applications? I assume it's too expensive to consider packing in a kit, am I wrong? I've not even seen the stuff, what's it like? I can't gleen much from Dupont's Kapton web site on it. Somebody educate me.

I've used it for a soldier mask and as a high temp elecrical tape before. It leaves no residue, and it's sticky though a huge range of tempuratures, but I don't know about water. It's not super flexible, very tough stuff. But it is probably pricy- I only ever used it in college, and the guy who ran the electronics shop kept it in a locked cabinet and you had to explain why you needed it.

I use the stuff at work, I don't think it would be a good choice for general use. I would not compare it to duct tape, it's more like a really strong scotch tape. It's heat resistant and ESD safe (I think) and it is slippery, I don't know where that would be an advantage anywhere.

Coming from an aerospace background Kapton was referred to as the ORANGE PLAGUE! While it has amazing lightweight insulating properties, once it ages it becomes brittle and cracks causing short circuits. If anything, Kapton can be attributed to causing survival situations from electrical fires and failed systems. In the mid 80’s I recall seeing dumpsters full of Kapton insulated wire harnesses pulled from aircraft and scrapped.

As far as survival situations goes, the hood portion of the (recently recalled) EVAC-U8 smoke hood is--was--made of transparent Kapton, kind of like cellophane gift wrapping. Not surprisingly, the EVAC-U8 is made by a subsidiary of DuPont. The hood can be folded down very small, so the whole unit is the size of a can of soda. That's smaller than its bulkier competitors, so that was one selling point of using Kapton. *sigh* Too bad they found something potentially dangerous with the CO filtration in the EVAC-U8. I still don't want to send mine in.