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He still expects the establishment of scientific bases and perhaps colonies on the moon and in other parts of the solar system by the end of the century. But will people go to live in these outposts and regard them as their home planets? They probably will, Clarke says, pointing out that this has already happened on Earth in very "improbable", inhospitable places. "With the technologies we have, or should have, I'd expect people to live, most certainly, on Mercury, Venus and Mars, the satellites of Jupiter and quite a few asteroids." As he once remarked, twisting Oscar Wilde: "We have to clean up the gutters in which we are now walking - but we must not lose sight of the stars."

This visionary hopefulness is Clarke's chief appeal to his legion of non-scientist admirers. These include Rupert Murdoch and Steven Spielberg, and a host of science fiction writers such as Ray Bradbury, Stephen Baxter and the late Gene Roddenberry, the brain behind the TV series Star Trek. Ronald Reagan was also an admirer, despite Clarke's opposition to his "Star Wars" strategic defence initiative in the 1980s.

Many scientists - and astronauts - go further in their admiration, respecting Clarke for his unique combination of scientific knowledge, intellectual originality and literary flair. J. B. S. Haldane, Wernher von Braun, Luis Alvarez, Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan were all personal friends of Clarke, as well as fans of his writing.

Clarke's influence on the development of satellites is profound. John Pierce and Harold Rosen, the two engineers principally responsible for the design of communications satellites in the 1960s, regarded him as the "father" of satellite communications on the strength of his technical article "Extra-terrestrial relays", published in Wireless World in late 1945 while its 27-year-old author was still in the RAF. This acknowledgement has now entered encyclopaedias - much to the satisfaction of Clarke, who regards the article as "the most important thing I ever wrote", even above his novels.

He cannot recall exactly how the basic idea came to him, though he says it emerged from a combination of his family's connection with post office engineering, his passion for rockets and his work during the war on ground-controlled radar, later fictionalised in Glide Path. "While working on radar I remember thinking: could the beam be powerful enough not just to detect the other guy but also to shoot his plane down? Power-beaming was one of the ingredients in the comsat idea, I'm sure."

But deferring to the engineers who made his 1945 concept a reality, he prefers to style himself not as the father of satellite communication but as its godfather. "If I hadn't written that paper in October 1945, 10 people would have done it the next year."