He, who started his journey

Sci-fi guru Arthur C. Clarke dies at 90

I really miss HIM.

 COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Even in death, Arthur C. Clarke would not compromise his vision. The famed science fiction writer, who once denigrated religion as “a necessary evil in the childhood of our particular species,” left written instructions that his funeral be completely secular, according to his aides. “Absolutely no religious rites of any kind, relating to any religious faith, should be associated with my funeral,” he wrote. Clarke died early Wednesday at age 90 and was to be buried in a private funeral this weekend in his adopted home of Sri Lanka. Clarke, who had battled debilitating post-polio syndrome for years, suffered breathing problems in recent days, aide Rohan De Silva said. The visionary author won worldwide acclaim with more than 100 books on space, science and the future. The 1968 story “2001: A Space Odyssey” — written simultaneously as a novel and screenplay with director Stanley Kubrick — was a frightening prophecy of artificial intelligence run amok. One year after it made Clarke a household name in fiction, the scientist entered the homes of millions of Americans alongside Walter Cronkite anchoring television coverage of the Apollo mission to the moon. Clarke also was credited with the concept of communications satellites in 1945, decades before they became a reality. He became known as the "godfather" of the satellite revolution. Geosynchronous orbits, which keep satellites in a fixed position relative to the ground, are called Clarke orbits. Fiction vs. nonfiction His nonfiction volumes on space travel and his explorations of the Great Barrier Reef and Indian Ocean earned him respect in the world of science, and in 1976 he became an honorary fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. But it was his writing that shot him to his greatest fame and that gave him the greatest fulfillment. “Sometimes I am asked how I would like to be remembered,” Clarke said recently. “I have had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer and space promoter. Of all these, I would like to be remembered as a writer.” From 1950, he began a prolific output of both fiction and nonfiction, sometimes publishing three books in a year. A statement from Clarke’s office said he had recently reviewed the final manuscript of his latest novel. “The Last Theorem,” co-written with Frederik Pohl, will be published later this year, it said.