ARTHUR CLARKE PREDICTS

Space travel has inspired thousands of science fiction writers. Here is what Arthur Clarke, many of whose predictions have come true, writes about space.

I think I became interested in space through the early science fiction magazines.

And I can still vividly remember some of those bright covers. That was in 1930 I think I saw my first. And it wasn't until quite some time later — a few years — that I came across a book which really changed my life. It was called The Conquest of Space. And that was the first book on the subject which took it seriously.

And I then realised: this could be for real. And from then on, of course, I was hooked.

Until the Russians put up Sputnik 1, in 1957,1 suppose 90 per cent of the public thought it was all nonsense. But after Sputnik people realised that the space age had started.

But nobody — not even us enthusiastic space cadets — realised that things would happen as quickly as they have.

It was back in 1945 that I wrote the paper suggesting that satellites could be used for communication. So I'm rather proud of that. Though sometimes, when I see some of the things that come down from satellites, I feel a certain kinship with the great Dr Frankenstein.

After the war I became interested in space stations.

The idea which I'm most interested in today — and which I wrote a novel about, The Phantoms of Paradise, is the Space Elevator. The idea of building an elevator from the Earth's surface right up to the stationary orbit, twenty-six thousand miles above, seems fantastic. But it's theoretically possible. The material that can make it possible is Buckminster Fullerine, the C60 molecule — which is maybe a hundred times stronger than steel in some of its forms.

And here's a strange thing. Bucky Fuller was a good friend. When I recorded The Phantoms of Paradise, he drew a picture of the Space Elevator. Yet Bucky never lived to see the discovery of the material named after him — which will, I think, make the Space Elevator possible.