Our age is in many ways unique, full of s and phenomena which never occurred before and can never happen again. They distort our thinking, us believe that what is true now will be true forever, though perhaps on a larger scale. Because we have annihilated distance on this planet, we imagine that we can do it once again. The facts are far otherwise, and we will see them clearly if we forget the present and turn our minds toward the past. To our ancestors, the vastness of the earth was a dominant fact controlling their thoughts and lives. In all earlier ages than ours, the world was wide indeed, and no man could ever see more than a tiny fraction of its immensity. A few hundred miles—a thousand, at the most—was infinity. Only a lifetime ago parents waved farewell to their emigrating children in the virtual certainty that they would never meet again. And now, within one incredible generation, all this has changed. Over the seas where Odysseus wandered for a decade, the Rome-Beiru comet (1) whispers its way within the hour. And above that, the closer satellites span the distance between Troy and Ithaca in less than a minute. Psychologically as well as physically, there are no longer any remote places on earth. When a friend leaves for what was once a far country, even if he has no intention of returning, we cannot feel that same sense of irrevocable separation that saddened our forefathers. We know that he is only hours away by jet liner, and that we have merely to reach for the telephone to hear his voice. In a few years, when the satellite communication network is established, we will be able to see friends on the far side of the earth as easily as we talk to them on the other side of the town. Then the world will shrink no more, for it will have become a dimensionless point. (From We’ll Never Conquer Space written by Arthur Clarke in 1960) 注：(1)Rome-Beiru comet：罗马—贝鲁特彗星号飞机；(2)Troy：特洛伊；(3)Ithaca：阿提刻岛。