The headline "Boeing releases ...." led me to believe that this research had been done at Boeing. Is my assumption unreasonable or is the reporting disingenuous?
The work was done at HRL, which Boeing owns a large part of (source: I worked at HRL).
Also, from my understanding, the most interesting thing about this material isn't the weight but the manufacturing process. To build the lattice they used a specialized 3D printer which combines the beams from a few directions, cf https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_microlattice
HRL is jointly owned by Boeing, Raytheon and General Motors. The parent companies commit to spending a certain amount on research every year, and researchers compete internally for those funds. This must have been a Boeing-funded project.
That unlikely ownership is an historical accident: those megacorps each acquired pieces of Hughes Aircraft, which built Hughes Research Labs, now HRL.
cowpig|10 years ago
rcpt|10 years ago
Also, from my understanding, the most interesting thing about this material isn't the weight but the manufacturing process. To build the lattice they used a specialized 3D printer which combines the beams from a few directions, cf https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_microlattice
robotresearcher|10 years ago
That unlikely ownership is an historical accident: those megacorps each acquired pieces of Hughes Aircraft, which built Hughes Research Labs, now HRL.