Weber's results were considered to be proven wrong by these experiments. In 1975, Billing acted on a proposal by Rainer Weiss from the Massachusetts Institute of technology (MIT) to use laser interferometry to detect gravitational waves. He and colleagues built a 3m prototype Michelson interferometer using optical delay lines. From 1980 onward Billing commissioned the development and construction in MPA in Garching of a laser interferometer with an arm length of 30m. Without the knowledge gained from this prototype, the LIGO project would not have been started when it did. In 1987, Heinz Billing received the Konrad Zuse Medal for the invention of magnetic drum storage. In 2015 he received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1993, the annual Heinz Billing prize for "outstanding contributions to computational science" was established by the Max Planck Society in his honor, with a prize amount of 5000 Euro.