Daedalus

In Greek mythology, a talented Athenian artisan. He made a wooden cow to disguise Pasiphae, wife of King Minos of Crete, when she wished to mate with a bull, and then constructed a Labyrinth to house the creature of their union, the Minotaur. Having incurred the displeasure of Minos, Daedalus fled from Crete with his son Icarus, using wings made from feathers fastened with wax.

Daedalus crossed the Aegean to safety, but his son flew too near the sun and fell into the sea.

Pursued by Minos, he was welcomed in Sicily by King Cocalus, whose daughters aided him to drown the king of Crete in boiling water.

Daedalus

Futuristic project proposed by the British Interplanetary Society to send a robot probe to nearby stars. The probe, 20 times the size of the Saturn V Moon rocket, would be propelled by thermonuclear fusion (in effect, a series of small hydrogen-bomb explosions). Interstellar cruise speed would be about 40,000 kps/25,000 mps.