Finally, I hope that Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov has now forgiven me for linking him with Dr Andrei Sakharov (still exiled in Gorky when 2010 was jointly dedicated to them). And I express my sincere regrets to my genial Moscow host and editor Vasili Zharchenko for getting him into deep trouble by borrowing the names of various dissidents - most of them, I am happy to say, no longer imprisoned. One day, I hope, the subscribers to Tekhnika Molodezhy can read the installments of 2010 which so mysteriously disappeared...
Arthur C. Clarke
Colombo, Sri Lanka
25 April 1987
Addendum
Since this manuscript was completed, something strange has happened: I was under the impression that I was writing fiction, but I may have been wrong. For consider the following sequence of events:
1. In 2010: Odyssey Two the spaceship Leonov was powered by the Sakharov Drive.
2. Now, half a century later (Chapter 8), spaceships are powered by the muon-catalysed, "cold fusion" reaction discovered by Luis Alvarez et al in the 1950s. (See the autobiography Alvarez: Basic Books, NY, 1987.)
3. According to the London Times, 17 August 1987, Dr Sakharov is now working on nuclear power production based on... "muon-catalysed, or 'cold' fusion, which exploits the properties of an exotic, short-lived elementary particle related to the electron... Advocates of 'cold fusion' point out that all the key reactions work best at just 900 degrees centigrade..."
I now await, with great interest, comments from Nobel Laureates Sakharov and Alvarez on the roles I have given them.
Arthur C. Clarke
30 September 1987
Arthur C. Clarke, 2061: Odyssey Three
(Series: Space Odyssey # 3)
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