Arthur C Clarke was one of the most eminent writers in the field of science fiction. I have been a fan of both Clarke and Asimov for a long time and have read many of their books, admiring many of them for their futuristic view of society, and of trying to draw visions of what the society of the future will look like, not only on the earth, but in other environments as well. For example, the Rama series takes the culture that gets established in a large alien cylindrical spaceship (and such an environment is not easy to think about). Arthur C Clarke was most famous for his work along with Stanley Kubrick on the incredible 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was written as a novel, and was also made into a fascinating movie.
Arthur C Clarke grew up as a boy in England, and then served through the Second World War in the Royal Air Force in the radar area, and left the service after the war to join King's College in London. He also was the Chairman of the British interplanetary service for 2 terms till 1953, but it was even before this time period, in the period just after the war had ended that he postulated the idea of the stationary geosynchronous orbit being ideal for placing of telecommunications satellites and in his honor, this orbit is named after him. He also wrote more about space flight and the rockets that would be used. He is now most famous for the 2001 inspired series, and for the Rama series, both of which won a lot of awards. In 1956, Clarke moved to Sri Lanka, inspired by his interest in scuba diving.
The Hammer of God is a novel set in the future, where a large asteroid is heading for earth, destined to become a killer of humanity. The asteroid is called Kali, and is detected by a program called Spaceguard, meant to protect the earth by deflecting an asteroid, not through the huge explosives that you see in movies called Deep Impact or Armageddon, but instead by placing a huge amount of fuel on the asteriod along with a rocket that would change the course of the asteroid by a small amount on a regular basis, but this course correction over the many weeks would change the trajectory of the asteroid enough to cause it miss the earth (this is one of the measures that are being investigated to prevent the earth from being hit by large asteroids). Of course, this would also be because the novel projects an earth which has rid itself of nuclear weapons.
The spacecraft which is spearheading this mission is called Goliath, meant to be in space along with a sister ship called Titan (located on opposite sides of the earth) - and the creation of this program was also created only after a tragedy happened to one of the advocated of the program. However, this simple program was meant to fail, since, there was a new religion on earth, conveniently called Chrislam (a combination of Christmas and Islam), which believed that God's purpose was not be opposed, and if a asteroid was meant to destroy the earth, so bet it. This would not mean the end of humanity, since there were settlements on the moon and on mars, but it would be an awful calamity; hence, they caused the destruction of the fuel tanks that would have caused the asteroid to change its course. What happens next ? Can the Goliath prevent the asteroid from hitting the earth and destroying all life ?
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Arthur C Clarke grew up as a boy in England, and then served through the Second World War in the Royal Air Force in the radar area, and left the service after the war to join King's College in London. He also was the Chairman of the British interplanetary service for 2 terms till 1953, but it was even before this time period, in the period just after the war had ended that he postulated the idea of the stationary geosynchronous orbit being ideal for placing of telecommunications satellites and in his honor, this orbit is named after him. He also wrote more about space flight and the rockets that would be used. He is now most famous for the 2001 inspired series, and for the Rama series, both of which won a lot of awards. In 1956, Clarke moved to Sri Lanka, inspired by his interest in scuba diving.
The Hammer of God is a novel set in the future, where a large asteroid is heading for earth, destined to become a killer of humanity. The asteroid is called Kali, and is detected by a program called Spaceguard, meant to protect the earth by deflecting an asteroid, not through the huge explosives that you see in movies called Deep Impact or Armageddon, but instead by placing a huge amount of fuel on the asteriod along with a rocket that would change the course of the asteroid by a small amount on a regular basis, but this course correction over the many weeks would change the trajectory of the asteroid enough to cause it miss the earth (this is one of the measures that are being investigated to prevent the earth from being hit by large asteroids). Of course, this would also be because the novel projects an earth which has rid itself of nuclear weapons.
The spacecraft which is spearheading this mission is called Goliath, meant to be in space along with a sister ship called Titan (located on opposite sides of the earth) - and the creation of this program was also created only after a tragedy happened to one of the advocated of the program. However, this simple program was meant to fail, since, there was a new religion on earth, conveniently called Chrislam (a combination of Christmas and Islam), which believed that God's purpose was not be opposed, and if a asteroid was meant to destroy the earth, so bet it. This would not mean the end of humanity, since there were settlements on the moon and on mars, but it would be an awful calamity; hence, they caused the destruction of the fuel tanks that would have caused the asteroid to change its course. What happens next ? Can the Goliath prevent the asteroid from hitting the earth and destroying all life ?
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