Arthur C. Clark, a towering figure in science fiction and futurism has died at 90.

Arthur C. Clarke, a writer whose seamless blend of scientific expertise and poetic imagination helped usher in the space age, died early Wednesday in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where he had lived since 1956. He was 90.

Rohan de Silva, an aide, confirmed the death and said Mr. Clarke had been experiencing breathing problems, The Associated Press reported. He had suffered from post-polio syndrome for the last two decades.

The author of almost 100 books, Mr. Clarke was an ardent promoter of the idea that humanity’s destiny lay beyond the confines of Earth. It was a vision served most vividly by “2001: A Space Odyssey,” the classic 1968 science-fiction film he created with the director Stanley Kubrick and the novel of the same title that he wrote as part of the project.

His work was also prophetic: his detailed forecast of telecommunications satellites in 1945 came more than a decade before the first orbital rocket flight.

Other early advocates of a space program argued that it would pay for itself by jump-starting new technology. Mr. Clarke set his sights higher. Borrowing a phrase from William James, he suggested that exploring the solar system could serve as the “moral equivalent of war,” giving an outlet to energies that might otherwise lead to nuclear holocaust.

Mr. Clarke’s influence on public attitudes toward space was acknowledged by American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts, by scientists like the astronomer Carl Sagan and by movie and television producers. Gene Roddenberry credited Mr. Clarke’s writings with giving him courage to pursue his “Star Trek” project in the face of indifference, even ridicule, from television executives.

In his later years, after settling in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Mr. Clarke continued to bask in worldwide acclaim as both a scientific sage and the pre-eminent science fiction writer of the 20th century. In 1998, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

Mr. Clarke played down his success in foretelling a globe-spanning network of communications satellites. “No one can predict the future,” he always maintained. But as a science fiction writer he couldn’t resist drawing up timelines for what he called “possible futures.” Far from displaying uncanny prescience, these conjectures mainly demonstrated his lifelong, and often disappointed, optimism about the peaceful uses of technology — from his calculation in 1945 that atomic-fueled rockets could be no more than 20 years away to his conviction in 1999 that “clean, safe power” from “cold fusion” would be commercially available in the first years of the new millennium.

The New York Times obituary continues.

Wired had this to say.

Arthur C. Clarke, the award-winning sci-fi writer and futurist most famous for his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, died Wednesday at his home in Sri Lanka. He was 90.

His writing, both fiction and nonfiction, established Clarke as a visionary. In a paper titled “Extra-Terrestrial Relays: Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Radio Coverage?” published in 1945 , Clarke floated the idea of using geosynchronous satellites for communications long before such technology changed our world. As a result, geostationary orbit is now sometimes known as the Clarke orbit.

That’s just one of the many innovative concepts Clark is credited with unleashing. From the electrosecretary transcription machine to the space elevator, Clarke laid out his visionary ideas in more than 100 fiction and nonfiction books.

Despite his track record as a futurist, Clarke remained humble about his work when he was interviewed for a 1993 Q&A with Wired magazine.

“I’ve never predicted the future,” Clarke said. “Or hardly ever. I extrapolate. Look, I’ve written six stories about the end of the Earth; they can’t all be true!”

Clarke picked his book The Songs of Distant Earth as his favorite personal writing, saying, “It’s got everything in it that I ever wanted to say.”

In one of the writer’s last published works, a submission to Wired magazine’s six-word story project in 2006, Clarke bent the rules a bit and refused to trim his 10-word piece (”God said, ‘Cancel Program GENESIS.’ The universe ceased to exist.”)

Arthur C. Clarke greets attendees at ISDC 2001.



Arthur C. Clarke 90th birthday reflections, recorded in December 2007.



Stanley Kubrick 2001: A Space Odyssey in 2 m and 01 sec