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With the death of Sir Arthur C. Clarke we have lost one of the last original visionaries of the Space Age, and one of its most eloquent dreamers. Many of us have also lost one of our favourite authors.

Clarke was an elder statesman both of space and science fiction, honored with a knighthood and many other awards. But he was always looking to the future, even late last year as he approached his 90th birthday on 18 December.

He was famed for his proposal for communications satellites, his writings on the future and championing of futuristic ideas, and his science fiction writings, and his co-authorship of the movie classic 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Clarke had a long-standing interest in both space and science fiction. He was an early member of the British Interplanetary Society, and at 20 had a letter explaining rocket science - complete with equations - published in the May 1938 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. That and his work as a radar specialist for the Royal Air Force during World War II led to his most famous proposal - satellite communications from geosynchronous orbit, published in Wireless World in 1945. Fascinated by technology, rocketry, and the future he also began writing science fiction.

Fourteen of his books sit on my desk as I write, only a small part of his output. One is a collection of his scientific and technical articles, Ascent to Orbit. Another is a wonderful book on the history of the global telecommunications network, How the World Was One: Beyond the Global Village, which begins with the transatlantic telegraph. Two others are paperback editions of his futuristic essays dating back nearly half a century - Profiles of the Future and The Challenge of the Spaceship. They're both well-written and full of ideas, no mean accomplishment.

The other ten are science fiction, a field where Sir Arthur became a giant ranked with Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein. Clarke didn't fiddle with ray guns and space pirates; he wowed readers with big concepts and vivid visions of the future. The movie 2001 was the ultimate idea-trip into the future, with Stanley Kubrick's cinematography complementing Sir Arthur's visions.

Childhood's End and A Fall of Moondust are classics of very different sorts. I particularly loved The Fountains of Paradise, set in a land similar to his adopted home of Sri Lanka, telling of the quest to build a space elevator reaching geosynchronous orbit.

Although confined to a wheelchair by post-polio syndrome in his last years, Sir Arthur remained optimistic about the space elevator, no matter how many people said it was daft. He was sure it would come to pass "50 years after everyone stops laughing".

His was a rich life that may not have finished leaving its mark on the world.

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Original Article: New Scientist Space Blog: Final odyssey: Arthur C Clarke dies at 90
News source: New Scientist Space Blog