MovieChat Forums > Meteor (1979) Discussion > Project Icarus did it really exist

Project Icarus did it really exist

posted 15 years ago by superturbo4
3 replies | jump to latest

Over the years whenever i watched this film, it ends with the message of the Project Icarus being mentioned.

"The Massachusetts Institute of technology" had a plan designed to deal with the possibility of 'Giant Meteors' on collision course with Earth, named Project Icarus!

Does or did it truly exist?

Even with things like the Discovery Channel, the mere mention of this existing in a movie clsoing moments doesn't get one to ask. Then again, many of my generation never knew we'd have an internet to speak about such things on a webpage forum, lol.

Serious question though, does anybody know?

ST4

Spill.com Reviews ROTF http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9LAXNzrOvc&feature=related

[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] efs2 13 years ago

According to Wikipedia, there was just such a project.

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

Project Icarus refers to three unrelated projects. Two at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1967 and one current international effort between the Tau Zero Foundation and the British Interplanetary Society (BIS).

....

The first "Project Icarus" was conducted in the spring of 1967. It was an assignment by Professor Paul Sandorff for a group of MIT graduate students to design a way to deflect an Apollo asteroid, 1566 Icarus, found to be on a collision course with planet Earth, using rockets.

This later served as the basis for the 1979 film Meteor.

Somedays it's just not worth chewing through the restraints.

[–] Jitsoo_Nobunaga 11 years ago

There is a chapter dedicated to Project Icarus in the book "Asteroids: A History" by Curtis Peebles. The chapter gives a fair amount of detail about the MIT course, the problem as given to the students, and the answer the students came up with, as well as some discussion as to whether it would have worked.

The book also has a lot about the history and science of asteroids so I found it ti be a good read, especially after seeing movies like this!