Something like this shows up in Arthur C. Clarke's The Songs of Distant Earth.
In that book, the interstellar starship Magellan can reach a large fraction of lightspeed, thanks to its "quantum drive," but, at those speeds, interstellar gas and dust becomes a real problem that could damage the ship. The ship, therefore, has an ablative shield on its nose, made of ice. (This shield has to be replaced, which is why the Magellan stops off at the mostly-water world Thalassa en route to its final destination.) The shield is built of giant hexagonal tiles of ice, which contain seaweed as a strengthener; the resulting mixture is dubbed "icecrete" by some of the engineers. Clarke may have been alluding to pykrete here; I assume he'd have known about it.
In that book, the interstellar starship Magellan can reach a large fraction of lightspeed, thanks to its "quantum drive," but, at those speeds, interstellar gas and dust becomes a real problem that could damage the ship. The ship, therefore, has an ablative shield on its nose, made of ice. (This shield has to be replaced, which is why the Magellan stops off at the mostly-water world Thalassa en route to its final destination.) The shield is built of giant hexagonal tiles of ice, which contain seaweed as a strengthener; the resulting mixture is dubbed "icecrete" by some of the engineers. Clarke may have been alluding to pykrete here; I assume he'd have known about it.