Arthur C. Clarke (1916 - ), one of the greatest science fiction writers of all time, envisioned space as no other man has done. The Space Elevator is not the first space innovation he has popularized. In 1945 he published a small paper describing the idea of a geostationary satellite, a "communications relay":, he called it. And it changed the world. Asked when the Space Elevator might come to pass, Clarke often answers: "about fifty years after people stop laughing about it."