This being said, the world is moving in the direction opposite to Clarke’s predictions. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, in the year of 2001, which has already passed, human beings have built magnificent cities in space, and established permanent colonies on the moon, and huge nuclear-powered spacecraft have sailed to Saturn. However, today, in 2018, the walk on the moon has become a distant memory. And the farthest reach of our manned space flights is just as long as the two-hour mileage of a high-speed train passing through my city. At the same time, information technology is developing at an unimaginable speed. The entire world is connected via the Internet and people have gradually lost their interest in space, as they find themselves increasingly comfortable in the space created by IT. Instead of an exploration of the real space, which is full of real difficulties, people now just prefer to experiencing virtual space through VR. Just like someone said,“You promised me Mars colonies, instead, I got Facebook.”

This reality is also reflected in science fiction. Arthur Clarke’s magnificent imagination about space has gradually faded away. People have taken back their eyes from the stars. In the sci-fi works today, there are more imagination about how we live in cyber utopia or dystopia. Writers focus more on various problems we encounter in reality. The imagination of science fiction is abandoning the vastness and profoundness that Arthur Clarke once opened up, instead people are now embracing the narrowness and introversion of cyberpunk.

As a sci-fi writer, I have been striving to continue Arthur Clarke’s imagination. I believe that the boundless space is still the best direction and destination for human imagination. I have always been portraying the magnitude and mysteries of the universe, interstellar expeditions, and the lives and civilizations happening in distant worlds, even if for today’s sci-fi writers, this may seem childish or even outdated. It says on Arthur Clarke’s epitaph,“He never grew up, but he never stopped growing.”

Many people misunderstand sci-fi as trying to predict the future, but this is not true. It just makes a list of possibilities of what may happen in the future, like displaying a pile of cobblestones of imagination for people to see and play with. Science fiction can never tell which possible future will actually become the real future. This is not its job. It’s also beyond its capabilities.

But one thing is certain: in the long run, for all these countless possible futures, any future without space travel is gloomy, no matter how prosperous our own planet becomes.

I look forward to the day when, like the sci-fi works writing about the age of information, those about space travel finally become the ordinary. By then, Mars and the asteroid belts will be boring places and countless people are building a home over there. Jupiter and its many satellites will be tourist attractions. The only obstacle preventing people from going there for good, will be the high price.

But even at that time, the universe is still something so big that even our wildest imagination fails to catch its edge. And even the closest star remains out of our reach. The vast ocean of stars can always carry our infinite imagination.

Thank you all.

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