SIR ARTHUR C. CLARKE

摘要

Arthur C. Clarke was a good friend to me for more than half a century, even though for most of that time we lived half a world apart. I first met him in 1956, when I was a technical editor on the Vanguard project. Everyone assumed that Vanguard would be the first artificial satellite of Earth, and Arthur came to the Glenn L. Martin Co., near Baltimore, Maryland, to do research for a book he was writing on that subject. Martin was building the satellite-launching rocket. In those days, the aircraft industry was metamorphosing into the aerospace industry. Martin was primarily a builder of flying boats for the U.S. Navy; today it is part of the mammoth Lockheed Martin Corporation.