There’s a coincidence. Just when the news broke that Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) has changed hands, we learn that the company’s chairman, Professor Sir Martin Sweeting, has won the 2008 Sir Arthur Clarke Lifetime Achievement Award.
Also known as the “Arthurs,” they like to describe these gong as “the space industry’s Oscar”. It may have been a “black-tie dinner” but we have seen no reports of the jewellery, or frocks, worn at the event.
The other coincidence is, of course, that Sir Arthur died on 18 March at the age of 90. It is hard to appreciate quite how much the sage of geostationary satellites did for science in the UK. Someone else would have come up with the idea of a satellite “hovering” over the same bit of the planet, but how many could turn that science into stories that grabbed a generation?
Sir Martin sums it up in his own comments on receiving this going. “As a teenager, I was captivated by Sir Arthur’s books and particularly the film ‘2001: A space odyssey’ which inspired me to strive for a career in space.”
Forget about all those well meaning attempts to persuade young people to study science and technology. Just bribe J. K. Rowling to move on from churning out Harry Potter’s witchcraft to writing about some real science.
