Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) and Rice University are celebrating the 25th anniversary of a breakthrough that has advanced technology across the globe.
Lockheed Martin is sponsoring the Year of the Nano, Rice’s celebration of the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the buckminsterfullerene molecule that makes nanotechnology possible.
The “buckyball” as it is affectionetly known, is, according to Lockheed, “a perfect, soccer ball-shaped molecule of 60 carbon atoms, is one of the toughest materials in nature. Its discovery in 1985 by Nobel Prize winners Richard Smalley and Robert Curl of Rice and Harold Kroto of Florida State University, along with Rice researchers James Heath and Sean O’Brien, kicked off an era of nanotech research.”
“Nano is revolutionizing modern technology just as plastics did generations ago, ” said Ray Johnson, SVP and chief technology officer at Lockheed Martin. “As a global security company, Lockheed Martin looks to our scientists and engineers to come up with innovative solutions for the future. In so many ways, nanotechnology is that future. That’s why we are proud to partner with Rice on this event.”
