199 lines
8.0 KiB
Markdown
199 lines
8.0 KiB
Markdown
---
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created_at: '2016-03-28T22:38:18.000Z'
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title: A Conversation with Arthur C. Clarke (1999)
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url: http://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/26/science/conversation-with-arthur-c-clarke-author-s-space-odyssey-his-stay-chelsea.html?pagewanted=all
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author: samclemens
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points: 42
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story_text:
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comment_text:
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num_comments: 13
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story_id:
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story_title:
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story_url:
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parent_id:
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created_at_i: 1459204698
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_tags:
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- story
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- author_samclemens
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- story_11378019
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objectID: '11378019'
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year: 1999
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---
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They took a nerve biopsy. I have some obscure neuropathy. All of a
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sudden, my legs get numb. Mainly, I have post-polio syndrome, which is
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why I can't walk anymore. I was told I had Lou Gehrig's disease,
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originally.
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As far as I know, Stephen Hawking is the only man who's survived that
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for very long, so this (laughs) is a considerable improvement.
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Q. We heard that the astronaut Buzz Aldrin made a visit to you at
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Hopkins.
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A. Yes, he dropped in to see me in the hospital and he kept making the
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point: we've got to get NASA out of the space business. He believes it
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should be private enterprise. There are a lot of people now who are
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trying to develop relatively cheap nonbureaucratic access to space. How
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successful they'll be, I don't know. I think the rocket will end up
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doing for space travel what the balloon did for air travel: it got us
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there, but soon was superseded by something better.
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Q. Are you as critical of NASA as Buzz Aldrin is?
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A. I won't criticize NASA because it's the slave of Congress.
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Actually, NASA has now set up an Institute for Advanced Concepts. It is
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looking at all sorts of crazy ideas, including my favorite one, the
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space elevator. It's such a delightfully simple idea: build an elevator
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from the Equator to a geostationary satellite. You move payloads up and
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down by electricity.
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When I wrote my book ''The Fountains of Paradise'' in 1979, about the
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building of the space elevator from a country which is 90 percent Sri
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Lanka, the only material that could be strong enough to build a space
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elevator was diamond. And that, unfortunately was not available in the
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megaton qualities needed for such a project.
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Interestingly, when I later recorded a 12-inch L.P. of ''The Fountains
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of Paradise,'' the cover notes and illustration were by Buckminster
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Fuller.
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Advertisement
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[Continue reading the main story](#story-continues-4)
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And now, we have the material to make it: C-60 nanotubes, which are
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hundreds of times stronger than steel.
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The Rice University scientists who were co-discoverers of C-60 have
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named it Buckminsterfullerene. If C-60 can be mass produced, it will
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revolutionize space travel, as well as everyday life. You could lift
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your car with one hand.
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The point of the space elevator is that it makes space travel cost just
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pennies. The cost in electricity of lifting you to space is about $200.
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The cost for a round trip is about $40 because you get most of your
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energy back on the downward trip. I've said many times that the main
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cost of space travel in the future is going to be for catering and in
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flight movies, not for fuel.
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And of course the considerable interest on the trillion or so that it
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costs to build the thing.
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Q. One reason you advocate space travel is fear of asteroids?
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## Newsletter Sign Up
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[Continue reading the main story](#continues-post-newsletter)
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###
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You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New
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### An error has occurred. Please try again later.
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[View all New York Times newsletters.](/newsletters)
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A. I'm always quoting the science fiction writer Larry Nivens that ''the
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dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program.''
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Yes, I think a serious asteroid impact is inevitable. In any case, even
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without them, we have all our eggs in one basket here. By the way, I'm
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an absentee landlord of a hundred square miles of some rather rugged
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territory near the orbit of Mars. I have an asteroid named after me.
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Isaac Asimov's got one too. It's smaller and more eccentric.
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Q. In the news is word that the world's population has hit six billion.
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What do you feel when you see a headline like that?
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A. Well, I feel rather depressed, but then there are so many times when
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I'm an optimist. I think we have a 51 percent chance of survival. I
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would say the next decade is perhaps one of the most crucial in human
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history, though many people have felt that in the past. But it's real
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now. There are so many things coming to a head simultaneously. The
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population. The environment. The energy crunch. And, of course, the
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dangers of nuclear warfare. I am often asked to predict things and I'm
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described as a prophet, but I deny that. I'm just an extrapolator. I can
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envision a whole spectrum of futures, very few of which are desirable.
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But I do feel that we science-fiction writers do serve as an early
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warning system, by showing what may happen, what could happen, and
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simply what should happen. I've often said one reason why I'm an
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optimist is that then you have a chance of creating a self-fulfilling
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prophesy -- and ditto if you're a pessimist -- it's more cheerful.
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Q. Can you think of something that you predicted might have happened
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that doesn't look like it will?
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A. Well, there won't be a Hilton in orbit by 2001.
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Advertisement
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[Continue reading the main story](#story-continues-5)
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Q. Was it your idea or Kubrick's to make a computer, HAL, the villain of
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film?
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A. Villain? HAL's a nice guy. No, I cannot now say who did what. The
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only thing I'm completely sure of is that the idea of HAL lip reading,
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which I thought was rather unlikely, was Stanley's. Now, of course,
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they've succeeded in getting a fair degree of accuracy with lip reading
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in computers. The way we wrote it, we just brainstormed. We sat in this
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apartment and brainstormed.
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Stanley said, ''I want to do a good science-fiction film.'' So we went
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through all my short stories to see what would make a good film. We had
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about six. One by one, we threw away stories. Eventually, we just had
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two of them. One was ''The Sentinel,'' and the other was ''Encounter in
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the Dawn,'' in which a space ship lands before man existed and the
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travelers meet man-apes. We were originally going to call the film,
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''How The Solar System Was Won.''
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Q. One of the legends about you is that you came up with the idea for
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Comsat in an article you wrote in 1945 and that you never patented the
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idea.
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A. Oh, so you want to ask me about how I lost a billion dollars in my
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spare time? Well, you see when I wrote my ''comsat'' paper, it was 1945.
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The war was still on. No one could even imagine what peace would be
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like. And I didn't think that satellites could be launched until the end
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of the century. So I didn't give the matter of a patent any thought at
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all. I just wrote this article and sent it off and got $:15 for it.
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Which was real money in 1945. I don't regret it because I think a patent
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would have expired anyway before the first comsats were launched. Until
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the technology reaches some level, you can't patent anything. Besides,
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who was it that said, ''The patent is merely a license to be sued?''
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Q. Surely you must sometimes fantasize about what your life would have
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been if you had?
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A. O.K., what I should have done is to try to copyright the word
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''comsat.'' If I'd done that. . . .
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Q. You've written somewhere near 100 books of science fact and fiction.
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How fast do you write, and think?
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A. Not as fast as I used to. I have difficulty remembering names. But I
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feel as long as I can spell ''Alzheimer,'' I'm in good shape. I don't
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know if I've ever written more than 3,000 words a day. Isaac Asimov
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could do that in a minute and a half. And mostly on a manual typewriter,
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too.
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Q. There are plaques mounted in front of the Chelsea Hotel dedicated to
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deceased artists who once lived here: Thomas Wolfe, Brendan Behan,
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Virgil Thomson. Will there be one for you one day?
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A. Oh, I hope so, but not for a long time. However, I don't mind if they
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put one up right now.
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[Continue reading the main story](#whats-next)
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