This story was updated at 7:00 p.m. ET.
Editor's note: SPACE.com received an overwhelming response to Arthur C. Clarke's passing. Click here to
read more reactions from scientists, writers and other luminaries.
As
news of Arthur C. Clarke's death spread through communities of scientists,
writers and science fiction fans, many people shared their memories of how the
visionary writer, inventor and futurist inspired and influenced them.
Clarke
is famous for his book, "2001:
A Space Odyssey" (he also co-wrote the screenplay for the movie), for
coming up with the idea for the communications satellite and for predicting
space travel long before humans left Earth.
"I
think the passing
of Arthur C. Clarke is really epical," said Alan Stern, associate
administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate. "There is no one of
his caliber or vision on the scene today ... Clarke's contribution was to
motivate people to go after careers because they wanted to help shape a certain
kind of future, to be at the beginning of something of millennial
importance."
Stern
said Clarke's legacy at NASA and in the space exploration community was
particularly significant.
"For
my generation, the children of Apollo, Clarke's writings were hugely and deeply
inspirational," Stern told SPACE.com. "He was not just a
technically competent writer of science fiction, science fact and futurism, but
he was incredibly optimistic. I have had many emails in the last 18 hours, from
friends of mine, from childhood, graduate school, >adulthood.
It's amazing to me how many say the same thing: 'I wouldn't be in this line of
work if it weren't for Arthur Clarke.' People across the world, especially the
backbone of American aerospace exploration and space science, were inspired by
Clarke's writings at one stage or another in their youth."
Clarke
had a profound impact on technology and invention. His idea for the
communications satellite has affected the whole planet.
"Arthur
was not only a major figure in the first baby steps in humans' exploration of
space, but a major figure in the building up of our planet as an interconnected
organism," said writer Ann Druyan, widow of
science popularizer Carl Sagan.
"He was someone really significant."
Druyan said she met Clarke many times over the decades that
he and Sagan were friends, as well as after Sagan's death.
"He
was not only a great technical mind, but of course he had a powerful
imagination, which influenced every one of us," Druyan
said. "If we use anything based on a communications satellite then we
definitely owe Arthur a huge debt. In my mind, '2001' remains the greatest
sci-fi movie ever made. In many ways today it seems more futuristic than movies
made 30 years later."
Many
people have wondered how Clarke was able to predict so many elements of the
future before they unfolded in reality.
"I
think it was partially because his mother was a radio telephone operator,"
Druyan said. "So here he is as a young person
growing up in the early part of the 20th century, at a moment where electronic
communication was in its fledgling earliest stages, and he is a guy who has an
exceptional imagination. So it was the perfect recipe for a child with Arthur's
talents to go in that direction. The modesty of his background is yet another
reason why it's so important to educate everybody, because you never know where
the next Arthur C. Clarke or Carl Sagan could
be."
Druyan said her friend will be remembered long after his
death.
"Arthur
had a great life," she said. "I don't really feel sadness because I
think he had a full measure of life and he used it to the utmost. We are better
for [his life]."
End
of an era
Clarke
also profoundly affected his fellow science fiction authors.
"Arthur
C. Clarke was one of the giants of science fiction; impossible to ignore,
looming over all of us who have come since," said Charles Stross, author of the novels "Saturn's Children"
and "Halting State." "He introduced many of us to science
fiction for the first time ... He managed, somehow, to combine visions grounded
in an understanding of science and engineering with a numinous sense of awe at
the scale and beauty of the cosmos in a manner that is all too rare."
With
Clarke's death, an important epoch in the world of science fiction is over, Stross said.
"All
of us come to an end eventually, and at 90 years of age Sir Arthur had decent
innings," he said. "But I'm still saddened: Along with Isaac Asimov
and Robert Heinlein, he pretty much defined science fiction for those of us of
a certain age, and news of his death signals the end of an era, far more than
the end of one man."
Many
writers remember the first Clarke book they read, and the profound effects his
work had on them.
"My friends and I read Clarke and talked about his fiction
with the awe of rabbinical students falling in love with Torah and
Talmud," said Orson Scott Card, author of many science fiction novels,
including "Ender's Game." "Inarticulate with youth, we would say
things like, 'Wasn't it cool when ...' But we were responding to the
experience of religious awe, which Arthur C. Clarke's fiction inspired in
us."
Although
Clarke is no longer with us, his
work will live on, Card said.
"His
books have not died," Card told SPACE.com. "They are still
alive. As long as we pass them on to the young, open-minded readers who are the
natural audience for science fiction, they will continue to inspire and move
new generations. The technologies that he explained or forecast will or
have become passe; but the deep issues his fiction addresses will live on, and
so will our hunger for books like his."
A
writer's writer
Not
only did Clarke impact the sweep of human history with his ideas, but he had a
very direct effect on the lives of many.
"When
I met my wife, just shy of fifty years ago, I gave her one book to read, to see
whether we could get along — Arthur Clarke's collection of stories,
'Expedition to Earth,'" said Joe Haldeman,
author of "The Accidental Time Machine." "She did like it, and
we're still going together."
Plus,
he was a great smoking companion.
"I
had the great pleasure of watching a couple of Apollo launches with
Arthur," Halderman said. "For most of
those launches, all of us science fiction writers got together at the house of
Joe Green, a writer who worked for NASA. Arthur and I were smokers then,
and so were banished to the back porch together. He was a wonderful
conversationalist, >which I hope made up for the fact
that I was tongue-tied, thrust into isolation with an idol of my youth. He was
a writer's writer, and a humane and brilliant man. He will be missed, and never
replaced."
Creating
the future
Clarke
inspired many young people to pursue science, and shaped the way many
scientists approach their work.
"He
affected how I thought about what I was doing," said Ed Stone, director of
the Space Radiation Laboratory at Caltech and project scientist for nine
satellite missions, including Voyager. "What he did was take
what was happening in science and extrapolate it in a realistic way into way in
the future. Since that's what science and engineering and technology are trying
to do, to create a new future, it was very interesting to get his ideas of what
that future might look like."
He
helped to make science important and understandable to the public.
"One
of his main legacies is his really firm belief that science and technology is a
defining feature of human evolution," Stone said. "And I of course
believe that myself. So he was a very effective writer in capturing the idea of
how important science and technology are to human evolution."
Click here to read
additional comments from scientists, writers and other luminaries about
Arthur C. Clarke's passing.
Staff
Writer Dave Mosher contributed reporting to this story.
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