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Foreword: The Winds of Space

by Arthur C. Clarke


Two very different kinds of wind blow forever from the sun. One is the gale of charged particles that shapes the tails of comets, whipping them across hundreds of mega-miles like pennants in a breeze. It is as inconstant and unpredictable as the hurricanes of Earth; sometimes it is a gentle zephyr, but it may rage with cyclonic violence during the peaks of the solar cycle. Then the ghostly aurora folds its curtains around Earth’s magnetic field, and torrents of incoming electrons paint flickering images as the ionosphere becomes a gigantic cathode ray tube in the sky.

The other wind is a far gentler one, scarcely varying from eon to eon. It is a wind not of particles, but of pure radiation—light itself. Feeble though it is, we may one day learn to harness it, as since the beginning of history we have enslaved the winds of Earth.

The great sailing ships of the past—tea-clippers like Cutty Sark, and the splendid windjammers of the New England master builders—were among the most beautiful achievements of human engineering. They reached one level of perfection just before the advent of steam and oil swept them from the seas—but they may return in a new, environmentally conscious age, with technologies based on composite materials, computer control, and satellite navigation.

This book is about a closely related idea whose time has yet to come. What a delightful irony it will be if the real age of sail has yet to dawn—not only on the oceans of Earth, but also in the far wider seas of space.

What is especially nice is that you’ve helped bring the age of interplanetary sailing closer, just by buying this book! I’ll come back in the final pages to tell you about an exciting opportunity to participate even more dramatically. But right now I’ll pass you on to some colleagues of mine, who volunteered their time and creativity to contribute to this unique volume about the adventure awaiting us tomorrow.


—Arthur C. Clarke

London

October 12, 1989

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