Reflections on the life of Arthur C. Clarke

I was brought up on his work, alongside Asimov and Harrison, and I wouldn't have missed out the attitude he gave us, We can do anything - we can be anything - the future is not to be feared, for all my hopes of resurrection and eternal life amid the stars.

I want to highlight one aspect of his life and work - we all know that he was one of the very first to envisage and promulgate geostationary communications satellites. His work was cited as prior art against a patent application, in fact - because of him, nobody owns the idea. Nobody controls the fleet of steel stars that relay our words across oceans.