In 1948 (10 years before NASA was set up), Arthur C. Clarke, the visionary writer, wrote a science fiction story called The Sentinel. In 1950, it was published in a magazine. In 1968, it became the basis for what is now one of the classic science fiction movies — 2001: A Space Odyssey. (Clarke, who worked on the screenplay, rewrote his original story into a book that was released soon after the movie.)
The movie came at a time when interest in space was at a peak. The Soviets and Americans were racing furiously to become the first to land a human on the moon. It was a time for great leaps of imagination, and Arthur C. Clarke was blessed with a wonderful imagination.
He and the director Stanley Kubrick conceived of the following:
A space station, parked in a permanent low-earth orbit of our planet
A super-intelligent computer, smart enough to beat humans at chess, that eventually develops intelligence of its own
An astronaut who jogs in the space station to keep fit
Flat-screen computer monitors, unheard of 40 years ago
A monitoring device left behind on the moon by an advanced alien civilisation
Aeroplane-like cockpits, with glass screens, for spacecraft
Personal in-flight video
Lots of TV channels!
Telephone numbers with more digits
Identification by voice
Humans placed in suspended animation for the very long space trips, being revived on arrival.
Many of these are reality for us today, others lie in the future or may never happen. But it’s interesting to think about how one or two people imagined all this 40 years ago. Can you imagine life 40 years from now?
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/2001_anniversary.html
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