Starlite - The billion dollar formula

Starlite was invented by amateur chemist Maurice Ward during the 1970s and 1980s. Despite interest from NASA and other major technological companies, Ward never revealed the composition of Starlite, which is still unknown.

So what does it do?

Starlite was/is a paint like substance which, when coated over an object, can withstand a heat of 10,000 degrees Celsius.
Live demonstrations on "Tomorrow's World" showed that Starlite could keep an egg (coated in the material) raw, and cold enough to be picked up with a bare hand, even after five minutes of blowtorch attack. It would also prevent a blowtorch from damaging a human hand.

Maurice believed his formula was worth billions of dollars.. but turned down any offer to send a big enough sample to test or retaining of samples for fear of the samplers discovering the revolutionary formula.

Ward got his inspiration after seeing an aircraft blaze on the ground and thought to himself "if only the material didn't burn at such temperatures". When asked why the formula hasn't yet been recreated, experts simply joke that he must have accidentally taken an irrational step in the concoction.

Crazy stuff.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlite

 

Great read. As an aspiring chemical engineer it's really cool to see this chemist create such an innovative product. It's unfortunate it was never brought to market. I wonder what was so complex about synthesizing it that it was never recreated.

 

Well for all we know his family has the product, but if they do they've kept quiet so far - he died 3 years ago.

 

Well if they do have the product it would appear that it is very valuable. If they were to sell it hopefully we would be able to recreate the product and hopefully in turn make a more efficient way to fireproof things such as fighter jets, maybe even space shuttles.

 

That's impressive. His paranoia is understandable though.