I knew Arthur Clarke, albeit from a distance, but on the basis of our limited acquaintance I can only support all the many commentaries from his closer friends as to what a truly fine man he was. Certainly, I shall always be grateful to him for his generous spirit in stepping forward and volunteering to write the preface to The Case for Mars, an endorsement which was substantially responsible for launching me into my current role.
My debt to Arthur Clarke, however, goes much deeper than that. He was a
formative influence in my life. While I was growing up during the
1960s, I read his books, all of them, some many times. In them, I found
a vision, convincingly explained and powerfully expressed, of a human
future vast in expanse of space and time, infinite in potential,
adventure, hope, and promise. To this vision I enlisted my soul. I am
very glad that I did.
One of my favorite Clarke works was his short novel Earthlight , which concerns intrigue surrounding an incipient Mars colonial revolution against terrestrial authority taking place in and around an astronomical observatory near the Lunar crater Aristarchus. In 1970, Apollo astronauts visited Aristarchus, and apparently one of them had read the novel too, for he commented on it, and "how proud Arthur Clarke would be if only he were alive today, and could know that men were finally visiting the scene of his novel." Arthur got a chuckle out of that one. "Yes, I certainly was," he commented a few years later. "But if anyone had told me in 1940, while I was writing that book while manning a radar station in England during the Blitz, that thirty years later, people would actually be walking on Aristarchus, I would have thought it was the most wild poppycock imaginable."
Yet they did. In 30 years, humanity went from world of the Blitz to that of moonwalks, thanks in no small part to the vision laid out by that young radar man. It is a phenomenal achievement of the human imagination, mind, and spirit. Clarke and his visionary associates in the British Interplanetary Society, actually realized their slogan "From Imagination to Reality." In the beginning, there was the Word. >From words, they created the Space Age. From words, they created the prospect of an open human future, a grand hopeful alternative to the totalitarian Malthusian nightmare that was threatening the world in 1940, and which, in different form, is threatening it again today.
Yes, in 30 years, we went from the Blitz to Aristarchus. But we have gone no further in the 38 years since. To truly honor great men, we must do more than hail their accomplishments, we must reaffirm them by committing to do likewise ourselves. So, in celebrating the life of Arthur Clarke, let us resolve that he did not live in vain. From imagination to reality. Let us make the vision real; to the moon, Mars, and the infinite stars that wait beyond.
One of my favorite Clarke works was his short novel Earthlight , which concerns intrigue surrounding an incipient Mars colonial revolution against terrestrial authority taking place in and around an astronomical observatory near the Lunar crater Aristarchus. In 1970, Apollo astronauts visited Aristarchus, and apparently one of them had read the novel too, for he commented on it, and "how proud Arthur Clarke would be if only he were alive today, and could know that men were finally visiting the scene of his novel." Arthur got a chuckle out of that one. "Yes, I certainly was," he commented a few years later. "But if anyone had told me in 1940, while I was writing that book while manning a radar station in England during the Blitz, that thirty years later, people would actually be walking on Aristarchus, I would have thought it was the most wild poppycock imaginable."
Yet they did. In 30 years, humanity went from world of the Blitz to that of moonwalks, thanks in no small part to the vision laid out by that young radar man. It is a phenomenal achievement of the human imagination, mind, and spirit. Clarke and his visionary associates in the British Interplanetary Society, actually realized their slogan "From Imagination to Reality." In the beginning, there was the Word. >From words, they created the Space Age. From words, they created the prospect of an open human future, a grand hopeful alternative to the totalitarian Malthusian nightmare that was threatening the world in 1940, and which, in different form, is threatening it again today.
Yes, in 30 years, we went from the Blitz to Aristarchus. But we have gone no further in the 38 years since. To truly honor great men, we must do more than hail their accomplishments, we must reaffirm them by committing to do likewise ourselves. So, in celebrating the life of Arthur Clarke, let us resolve that he did not live in vain. From imagination to reality. Let us make the vision real; to the moon, Mars, and the infinite stars that wait beyond.
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