Thorium dioxide spacecraft hulls with nickel or silicon

[farmerben]

 

Thorium dioxide mixed with nickel is an astonishing material.  It is among the best alloys to resist thermal expansion, and incredibly hard.  Thorium dioxide can be mixed into windows, and expensive camera lenses were made this way until a few decades ago.  

What if we had a mildly radioactive hull on a spacecraft?

The radiation from thorium is low energy alpha radiation which can't penetrate polyethelene.  There are traces of beta radiation from radium, but very low and manageable.  

When the ship is exposed to higher energy proton and alpha radiation from external sources, it can sometimes spall off additional nucleons from the thorium.  The trend is more particles with lower individual energies, even though the spallation is an exothermic nuclear reaction of a sort.  An inner hull would be able to block a greater percentage of the radiation, compared to high energy rays that go right through.  

The thorium in the hull would be able to tell its life story of when it was exposed to lots of radiation and from where.  On the other hand it is among the best gamma ray shields.  So with the proper alpha shielding, a crew would get less overall radiation compared to a similar mass steel or aluminum hull.  

 

edit additional:

One other nice feature is the ability to damage control on the spacecraft.  The ship can image its own xrays.  If there is a hairline crack in a steel pipe anywhere, it will show up in x-ray microscopy.  

Potentially the crew would be exposed to more X-rays than normal people nowadays.  Imagine a woman with two jobs; a dental hygienist and an airline stewardess.  Just insert this gene into her and everything will be fine.  

 

Edited April 23, 2020 by farmerben

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

 

[kerbiloid]

3 hours ago, farmerben said:

If there is a hairline crack in a steel pipe anywhere, it will show up in x-ray microscopy.  

I would do this in the last turn, after makng the search area as narrow as possible by acoustic emission. In fact, just for lulz, as the part is anyway cracked.

Edited April 23, 2020 by kerbiloid