It remains unknown where the segment fit into the wing, but it included reinforced carbon-carbon material, which protects the leading edge of shuttle wings from the 3, 000-degree Fahrenheit heat of atmospheric re-entry.

CNN: Piece of shuttle left wing identified

Michie's Whale Skull Bone will be made using a metal framework inside a carved dense polystyrene material which is then coated in reinforced concrete.

BBC: Sculptures selected for Dunnet Head and beach

Twenty years on, he spent much of what remained of his late wife Margaret's fortune the main source of financing for the excavation on reconstructing bits of the palace in reinforced concrete, then a fashionable new building material.

ECONOMIST: Bullshot

Instead, the carbon fibre is shipped to SGL Automotive's German factory in Wackersdorf, where a thermoplastic material is injected to bind them together into reinforced plastic sheets.

BBC: Knitting and baking the cars of the future