In the NASA ISS flight ops manual the use of duct tape is called for in case of "acute psychosis" on a space mission. NASA procedures dictate that the affected astronaut should be restrained using duct tape to stop them from doing something rather silly
Duct tape was also used aboard Apollo 17 to improvise a repair to a damaged fender on the lunar rover, preventing possible damage from the rooster tails of lunar dust as they drove.
To provide lab data about which sealants and tapes last, and which are likely to fail, research was conducted at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Environmental Energy Technologies Division. Their major conclusion was that one should not use duct tape to seal ducts (specialty tapes are available for this purpose). (They defined duct tape as any fabric-based tape with rubber adhesive.) The testing done shows that under challenging but realistic conditions, duct tapes become brittle and may fail. Commonly duct tape carries no safety certifications such as UL or Proposition 65, which means the tape can violently burn, produce toxic smoke, ingestion and contact toxicity, irregular mechanical strength, and low life expectancy for the adhesive on the tape. Its use in ducts has been prohibited by the state of California and by building codes in most other places in the U.S. However, metalized and aluminum tapes used by professionals are still often called "duck/duct tapes".
And I love the stuff
