. The station crew would use the kit if the shell of the station were to be pierced.
The kit consists of two differently-sized plastic plate, a thin foam ring, adhesive, supplies to clean the area around the breach, and some metal parts to keep the patch together. The materials could plug a small hole for about six months, giving time for a permanent repair.
One issue with the repair kit is the time NASA says it takes to use it: two and a half hours. In even an hour, astronauts would be subject to dangerously low levels of oxygen, as gas would flow out of the hole and into space.
That means the crew would have to first recognize the leak and then seal off the affected area before the kit could be used.
Once the area has been sealed, astronauts would take a series of space walks, first to assess the damage, then to clean the area of debris, and then to seal the area with a patch.
Still, NASA says this process is an improvement over previous techniques in which astronauts would have to rush to repair the hole before oxygen levels drop too low.
"We don't have a single can of Dr. Pepper in our kit."
Another issue is that if the hole is bigger than the largest patch -- about the size of a dinner plate -- the kit would be useless.
"If it is larger than that, you approach the point where structural damage is so severe you would need to make extensive repairs," said Steve Hall, the project engineer of the repair kit. "The subsystems inside would very likely be damaged. Plugging the hole would not necessarily be the first thing."
NASA calculates that in any given year, the odds of a meteorite penetrating a piece of the station is about one in a hundred.
Detecting a leak, which posed the biggest problem to the Mission to Mars crew, won't be as easy as pouring out soda and watching where it goes.
Airflow from internal systems would probably have more of an effect on where the liquid goes than a small hole in the spacecraft's shell, Hall said.
NASA is developing advanced detection systems for breaches -- acoustic sensors, flow sensors, infrared devices, and others -- though standard sensors would alert the crew when the leak causes a drop in air pressure.
All that Dr. Pepper stuff, says Hall, alerts the public to the dangers of space travel, but does so inaccurately.
"I'd like to have it be as accurate as possible," said Hall. "What they show in the movies is not always as realistic as you'd like it to be. We don't have a single can of Dr. Pepper in our kit. I don't know if that's an oversight or not on our part."
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