With the death of Sir Arthur C Clarke, aged 90 at his home in Colombo, the world has lost a colossus in the world of science fiction, who dared to explore the ultimate limits of the possible to predict the future. What set him apart from other science fiction writers was his amazing grasp of scientific and technical insight, a razor sharp imaginative mind which could dwell into the future with an uncanny perception and extra-ordinary ability to graphically weave them into highly interesting gripping tales which have had profound influence on generations of young scientific minds. Arthur’s imaginative writing has ranged from creation of global village through satellite communication to inter-planetary travel, planetary exploration and colonisation of space providing accurate future predictions, many of which have already come true.

The honour of initiating the communication revolution rightly belongs to Sir Clarke, who, with the publication of his celebrated classical paper “Extra-Terrestrial Relays” in Wireless World in 1945, demonstrated that a satellite orbiting at a height of about 36,000 km in space over the equator, would be stationary with respect to the earth and thus can be used to establish uninterrupted communication over a third of the globe.

This revolutionary idea was proposed when rocketry was still in its early days and no artificial satellite was yet launched into space. Even though his paper created history and took the entire world by an irresistible storm, few at the time of its publication probably grasped the immense potential of satellite communication. However, within a short period of 12 years from the date of publication of his paper, the first artificial satellite Sputnik-1 was launched into space and the entire concept of communication satellites for long distance communication and broadcasting was proven by Telstar another five years later.

In the last 50 years, since the beginning of the space age, geo-stationary communication satellites have become the backbone of long distance communication, broadcasting, navigation, education, meteorological services and disaster management across the world, with close to about 200 geo-stationary communication satellites operating as of today. Most importantly, the spectacular developments in space technology combined with convergence of communication and computers have ushered the most powerful Information and communication technology revolution, transforming the entire world into a global village.

Sir Clarke was intimately associated with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) since early 1970’s. He was particularly appreciative of our historical Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) carried out in 1975-76, which was used to broadcast developmental educational programmes directly to a 10 ft chicken mesh antenna located in 2,400 remote rural villages in India, using NASA’s ATS-6 satellite.

As a mark of respect, ISRO presented one of its first direct reception sets to him, which was set up over his residence in Colombo. In recognition of his lasting contribution to Sri Lanka where he has been residing since 1964, Sir Arthur Clarke was felicitated by the Sri Lankan Government  on his 90th Birth day on December 16, 2007, during which I had the honour of representing India. 

Sir Arthur Clarke was the most famous science fiction writer of our time, a cult figure, who endeared himself to the young and old across the globe. With over 20 million copies of his 50 or more odd books published so far in over 30 languages, Dr Clarke has taken generations of readers to the far end lonely reaches of the universe. His novels as well as the numerous short stories, plays, TV series and anthropologies which he wrote, provide us a guided grand tour of the cosmos and a spectacular panorama of how life will be in the 21st century and beyond, through a near miraculous synthesis of scientific fact and scientific fiction based on extrapolation and projection of contemporary cutting edge technology into the future.

Sir Clarke has combined mystic Hindu mythology, latest scientific developments, telescopic view of cosmos, speculation of the future discoveries in different areas of science and a deep understanding of human psychology to weave highly interesting, enjoyable, truly creative and innovative science fiction stories.

Sir Arthur Clarke is the recipient of numerous awards which include the 1961 Kalinga Prize, the AAAS-Westinghouse science-writing prize, the Bradford Washburn Award and the Hugo, Nebula and John W Campbell Awards. In 1968, he shared an Oscar nomination with Stanley Kubrick for his celebrate book 2001: A Space Odyssey and his 13 part TV series. His invention of the communication satellite in 1945 brought him numerous honours, such as the 1982 Marconi International Fellowship, a gold medal of the Franklin Institute, the Vikram Sarabhai Professorship of the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad and Von Karman Award of the International Astronautical Federation.

With the death of Sir Arthur Clarke, the world has lost its greatest contemporary science fiction writer who with his vivid imagination and magical insight succeeded in revelating the awesome beauty of the magnetic and exciting space travel and exploration to the world at large and I have lost my long standing personal friend.

(The writer is former Chairman, ISRO/ Secretary, Department of Space.)