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Table of Contents

Locations

1. Academic & Administrative

   1. Space Science and Technology Building

      Space Science and Technology Building

       

      The third building in the so-called "bio, geo, spac" trinity of Rice buildings was built with financial support from NASA to house Rice’s space science department. In this building in 1985, Rice Professor Emeritus Robert Curl and the late Richard Smalley, with a visiting colleague from England, discovered Buckminsterfullerene (also known as C-60 or buckyballs), a new form of carbon molecule, earning the three researchers the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

       

      What's there: 

      • Department of Chemistry
      • Smalley-Curl Institute
      • Research Support Shop

      Named for: The nation's first dedicated space science department

       

      Built: 1966, George Pierce-Abel B. Pierce

       

      Rice Campus Map No. 75