Day: March 19, 2008

Science fiction writer, science essayist and all-around futuristic thinker Sir Arthur C. Clarke dies at the age of 90. In addition to writing such seminal SF novels as “2001: a space odyssey” (and simultaneously writing its screenplay) and “Rendezvous With Rama” (and their various sequels and spinoffs), he also posited – in a 1945 paper – a network of communications in fixed orbits above the Earth, exchanging signals between the ground and one another, some 20 years before the first steps were taken in that direction. (As a result, geosynchronous orbit is also referred to as “Clarke orbit.”) Even before that, he played a part in early work on radar as a member of the RAF during World War II. In the 1950s, he moved to Sri Lanka, but kept up a prodigious schedule of writing both fiction and non-fiction, as well as appearances ranging from brief movie roles (both as himself and otherwise) to being a television commentator on the Apollo moon missions.