Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
Not really... when Clarke made that prediction, the very idea of launching a man-made machine into permanent and trackable orbit, intact, was a very new and unique idea, not a "narrow" extrapolation at all. It required very involved and precise engineering to pull off, more involved than was available when Clarke proposed it.
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I read somewhere that Clarke's envisaged communication satellites were huge.
Primarily made up of accomodation for the crew that would be up there swapping out the blown valves
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Just dug up the source:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/arthurcclarke.shtml
"Clarke imagined his satellites as vast orbiting space stations, manned by teams of engineers performing maintenance and regularly supplied by rocket flights from Earth. The miniaturisation that became possible with the transistor, he says, took him by surprise."