Clarke predicted intercontinental hypersonic airliners in the 1970s (“Death and the Senator” 1961) . Heinlein predicted a base on Pluto established in the year 2000. Asimov only predicted suborbital space flights at very low acceleration that casual day tourists would line up to take from New York in the 1990s, but also sentient non-mobile talking robots and non-talking sentient mobile robots by that decade. Robert Forward predicted in the novel Rocheworld (1984) that the first unmanned space probe would return pictures from Barnard’s Star in 2022 (though the images wouldn’t arrive back on Earth till 2028).
On the flip side:
Clarke predicted in “Childhood’s End” that it would take extensive searching through a specialized library (where you had to make an appointment through your university and show up in person) just to identify an astronomical catalog number in the 21st century. It would also take VERY expensive computer time with a worldwide waiting list to analyze the trajectory of a comet-like object in the novel “Rendezvous with Rama”. That’s because comets follow complex hyperbolic trajectories that require calculus far too difficult for humans to solve with pen and paper.
Aerospace predictions were too optimistic:
Clarke predicted intercontinental hypersonic airliners in the 1970s (“Death and the Senator” 1961) . Heinlein predicted a base on Pluto established in the year 2000. Asimov only predicted suborbital space flights at very low acceleration that casual day tourists would line up to take from New York in the 1990s, but also sentient non-mobile talking robots and non-talking sentient mobile robots by that decade. Robert Forward predicted in the novel Rocheworld (1984) that the first unmanned space probe would return pictures from Barnard’s Star in 2022 (though the images wouldn’t arrive back on Earth till 2028).
On the flip side:
Clarke predicted in “Childhood’s End” that it would take extensive searching through a specialized library (where you had to make an appointment through your university and show up in person) just to identify an astronomical catalog number in the 21st century. It would also take VERY expensive computer time with a worldwide waiting list to analyze the trajectory of a comet-like object in the novel “Rendezvous with Rama”. That’s because comets follow complex hyperbolic trajectories that require calculus far too difficult for humans to solve with pen and paper.