Sir Arthur C. Clarke, C.S. Lewis and Kathryn Lindskoog

I. An Incredible Man

Sir Arthur C. Clarke was born in Somerset in 1917 and obtained First Class Honours in Physics and Mathematics at King's College, London. He is a member of many scientific organizations and has won countless scientific awards. In 1945 he originated the idea of communications satellites and published his plan in the October issue of Wireless World magazine, without a patent on it. (That's what has led to CNN.) In 1953 he published his first novel, Childhood's End, and since then he has won top science fiction awards, the Hugo and the Nebula. His 1969 movie "2001: A Space Odyssey" was an Oscar nominee. He has published articles in many major magazines and is the author of well over fifty books, printed in over thirty languages. They have sold over twenty million copies. He appeared on CBS TV with Walter Cronkite and Captain Wally Shirra during Apollo 11, 12, and 15 missions and was chosen to write the Epilogue for the Astronauts' account First on the Moon. He has appeared on TV with major personalities like David Frost and Hugh Downs, and stars frequently in his own programs such as "Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious Universe." He is still prodigiously productive, although he is hampered physically now by post-polio syndrome.

In 1956 Clarke moved to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) to pursue his hobby of underwater exploration. That's the year when C.S. Lewis told Kathryn Lindskoog that the best science fiction book, in his opinion, was Clarke's Childhood's End. (Lewis didn't happen to mention that he and Clarke were acquainted, and that he had a close friend named Joy Gresham who was a friend of Clarke's.) About ten years later Clarke mentioned Lewis in an article called "Armchair Astronauts" in Holiday magazine:

"Less sympathetic to our aims was Dr. C. S. Lewis, author of two of the very few works of space fiction that can be classed as literature-Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra. Both of these fine books contained attacks on scientists in general, and astronauts in particular, which aroused my ire. I was especially incensed by a passage in Perelandra referring to 'little Interplanetary Societies and Rocketry Clubs'...

"An extensive correspondence with Dr. Lewis led to a meeting in a famous Oxford pub, the Eastgate... Needless to say, neither side converted the other. But a fine time was had by all, and when, some hours later, we emerged a little unsteadily from the Eastgate, Dr. Lewis' parting words were, 'I'm sure you're very wicked people-but how dull it would be if everyone was good.'

Fifty years after Clarke invented satellite communication, he was awarded an honorary doctorate at the University of Liverpool. The colorful ceremony in full academic regalia took place simultaneously in the afternoon in Liverpool and at night in Sri Lanka. The audience in Liverpool watched Sir Arthur C. Clarke, with the dark blue Indian Ocean behind him, on a large screen at the front of the auditorium. At the same time, Clarke watched the proceedings in the auditorium. (The ceremony had been briefly delayed by a disastrous satellite explosion out in space that very afternoon, but a substitute system worked fine.) The half-hour ceremony was riveting.