Before revision: 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.Kleiman Louis A., Project Icarus: an MIT Student Project in Systems Engineering, Cambridge, Massachusetts : MIT Press, 1968"Systems Engineering: Avoiding an Asteroid", Time Magazine, June 16, 1967.Day, Dwayne A., "Giant bombs on giant rockets: Project Icarus", The Space Review, Monday, July 5, 2004
After revision: In the course of their study the students visited the Kennedy Space Center, Florida where they were so impressed with the Vertical Assembly Building that they wrote of "the awesome reality" that had "completely erased" their doubts over using the technology associated with the Apollo program and Saturn rockets.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.Kleiman Louis A., Project Icarus: an MIT Student Project in Systems Engineering, Cambridge, Massachusetts : MIT Press, 1968"Systems Engineering: Avoiding an Asteroid", Time Magazine, June 16, 1967.Day, Dwayne A., "Giant bombs on giant rockets: Project Icarus", The Space Review, Monday, July 5, 2004