Project Spaceguard
Clarke invented the space study program which detects Rama, Project Spaceguard, as a method of identifying near-Earth objects on Earth-impact trajectories; it was initiated after an equally fictional asteroid "struck" Italy on September 11, 2077, destroying Padua and Verona and sinking Venice.
A real project named Spaceguard was initiated in 1992, named after Clarke's fictional device. After interest in the dangers of asteroid strikes was heightened by a series of Hollywood disaster films, the United States Congress gave NASA authorization and funding to support Spaceguard.
Read more about this topic: Rendezvous With Rama
Famous quotes containing the word project:
“Although I mean it, and project the meaning
As hard as I can into its brushed-metal surface,
It cannot, in this deteriorating climate, pick up
Where I leave off.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)