Arthur C. Clarke's Vision

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FlatEarth

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I just started reading Arthur C. Clarke's 2061: Odyssey Three for the second time (in almost twenty years), and came upon the part where he says the discovery of water on the moon opened the doors to the solar system. The book was copyrighted in 1987 and first published in 1988! A pretty amazing prediction!

I think most people know in 1945 he was the first to propose geostationary communication satellites. He modestly said someone else would have thought of it if he didn't, and no doubt he was right, but it doesn't diminish his remarkable ability to imagine something no one else had, only to see it become an every day fact. It just shows what a true visionary he was. :ugeek:
 
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jim48

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I grew up on a steady diet of science fiction. I picture myself 30 years from now in the nursing home finally having time to go back and re-read the science fiction novels and short stories from my youth. What great adventures! Clarke, like so many of his sci-fi kin was so far ahead of his time! His best, IMO, remains Childhood's End. Although Rendevous with Rama knocked my socks off when it was first published! Too many sequels Clarke did with his novels, IMO. Same with Asimov. I digress. I remember sitting under a tree in the park by the lake reading an old paperback copy of Glory Road by Robert Heinlein when I was a kid. I read it in one afternoon and couldn't stop talking about it with my buddies the next day!!!
 
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ZenGalacticore

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Jim48-

I hope you live those 30 years longer to be able to do just that. Although, I also hope that you're NOT in a nursing home.

Perhaps several of us, in our old age, can get together and work out a room-mate agreement. Think about it. If we were all generous and industrious enough, we could all work part-time and with augmentation from our refund of the Social Security that we've all been paying into since we were 14 years-old, we could work it out! :lol: :|

FlatEarth- Yeah man. ACC was one cool fellow! He was modest as many visionaries are! (They're usually modest because true visionaries realize that they may be dead wrong!)

But I wonder if it's really all that much of a stretch that at least traces of water would be found on Earth's moon. At any rate, Clarke was a hell of a guy and I thoroughly enjoyed his creations.
 
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Shpaget

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Clarke and Heinlein are definitely one of my favorite authors.
Clarke of course was a genius.
 
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FlatEarth

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ZenGalacticore":2dfml1w9 said:
Jim48-

I hope you live those 30 years longer to be able to do just that. Although, I also hope that you're NOT in a nursing home.

Perhaps several of us, in our old age, can get together and work out a room-mate agreement. Think about it. If we were all generous and industrious enough, we could all work part-time and with augmentation from our refund of the Social Security that we've all been paying into since we were 14 years-old, we could work it out! :lol: :|

FlatEarth- Yeah man. ACC was one cool fellow! He was modest as many visionaries are! (They're usually modest because true visionaries realize that they may be dead wrong!)

But I wonder if it's really all that much of a stretch that at least traces of water would be found on Earth's moon. At any rate, Clarke was a hell of a guy and I thoroughly enjoyed his creations.
I don't know about that roommate idea, Zen. I don't think Jimbo will likely share QuantumnumeralBabe with any of us. :)
 
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StarRider1701

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Yes, Clark was a genius and Heinlein was a great storyteller. Heinlein's prediction of the fax machine was a little bit off, in reality it doesn't do everything he predicted but even still, there's one in every office.
Sadly, I know I read Glory Road, I read all of his work, but I can't remember the story. Rendevous with Rama was a great book, I loved it, especially the ending when it turned out they weren't interested in us at all, just needed our star to get them on towards their eventual destinatiion!

Zen, your idea about roommates should start with someone who owns a house that is paid for. I've done some dumb things this past decade, but one smart thing I did was to refinance my house into a 15 yr mortgage at 4.875% back in 2004. In ten years its paid for - just in time. Sadly, I don't live down south like Zen and Jim and some of you others. Winter in central Ohio aint too bad...
We can maybe talk about it in Las Vegas during our Area51 adventure THIS June! Happy 2010! :D
 
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bdewoody

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I rate Clarke right up there with Verne and Wells. He was my favorite SciFi writer and the Rendesvoux with Rama series of books are my favorites. The first stands alone well and I too thought it was great that Rama wasn't looking for us but rather was using our star for a speed boost. But the other three Rama books he co-wrote with Gentry Lee had a good story to tell about human behavior and our potential interaction with ET.
 
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junkheap

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2001: A Space Odyssey was the first time I saw a fictional flat-screen television. Now, their all over the place... in real life. :D
 
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