Alisha Fuller-Armah: A story so sensational it made Alice Bunn cry

So tell me, when you

say arrests heat, can you

describe exactly what you mean? Yeah, usually in space, for example, when things get very, very hot, the way that conventionally material science has dealt with it is through ablation.

So it peels away so that the heat doesn't actually get to the payload on the other side, right? It's a bit like an onion.

That's traditionally the way sort of material science has dealt with it.

What I had been trying to do for quite a period is trying to find a material that would solidify into itself, vitrify, as we know, into itself so that it protects against heat without peeling away.

So I hope that makes sense.

Amazing.

So when you say vitrify, again, just for people that aren't...

Yeah, yeah, no, not at all.

Don't apologize.

You mean like it becomes glass-like?

It kind of becomes glass, kind of ceramic, and it just becomes something really, really firm and solid, almost a rock fundamentally.

And so that was the kind of the breakthrough, as it were, that led to what is now draconite, because it stops heat flame.

So in terrestrial sphere, that's really good for sort of flame retardant, it's totally natural.

But more crucially for space, when there's really high temperatures, it actually prevents the payload from being affected because it becomes very solid.

So almost like if you imagine right now, people decide to use kilns on Earth, they fire these tiles on Earth, And they send them up to space.

And they're very, very heavy.

They're very rigid.

What this does is almost uses the heat of re-entry, the heat of the threat at that time to form what is almost like an in-situ kiln to create the material that protects the payload.

All stemming from a wedding venue business in the Caribbean.

And

learning to grow mushrooms from YouTube.

And more than that, just the threat of having, you know, seeing the literal smoke.

Because, you know, I live somewhere very remote in South Scotland.

So tell me, when you

say arrests heat, can you

describe exactly what you mean? Yeah, usually in space, for example, when things get very, very hot, the way that conventionally material science has dealt with it is through ablation.

So it peels away so that the heat doesn't actually get to the payload on the other side, right? It's a bit like an onion.

That's traditionally the way sort of material science has dealt with it.

What I had been trying to do for quite a period is trying to find a material that would solidify into itself, vitrify, as we know, into itself so that it protects against heat without peeling away.

So I hope that makes sense.

Amazing.

So when you say vitrify, again, just for people that aren't...

Yeah, yeah, no, not at all.

Don't apologize.

You mean like it becomes glass-like?

It kind of becomes glass, kind of ceramic, and it just becomes something really, really firm and solid, almost a rock fundamentally.

And so that was the kind of the breakthrough, as it were, that led to what is now draconite, because it stops heat flame.

So in terrestrial sphere, that's really good for sort of flame retardant, it's totally natural.

But more crucially for space, when there's really high temperatures, it actually prevents the payload from being affected because it becomes very solid.

So almost like if you imagine right now, people decide to use kilns on Earth, they fire these tiles on Earth, And they send them up to space.

And they're very, very heavy.

They're very rigid.

What this does is almost uses the heat of re-entry, the heat of the threat at that time to form what is almost like an in-situ kiln to create the material that protects the payload.

All stemming from a wedding venue business in the Caribbean.

And

learning to grow mushrooms from YouTube.

And more than that, just the threat of having, you know, seeing the literal smoke.

Because, you know, I live somewhere very remote in South Scotland.