Avi Loeb’s scientific approach, including Times Square billboards, would fit perfectly into a story by Arthur C Clarke (The alien hunter: has Harvard’s Avi Loeb found proof of extraterrestrial life?, 29 November). Clarke, who predicted the use of satellites for communication and co-created Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, had an affection for quirky scientists who found the money for their interplanetary exploits beyond the confines of the ivory tower.
The unpredictable 2020s have so far provided us with plenty of plot points that we are familiar with from hard science fiction stories by the likes of Clarke or Greg Bear. Wars, artificial intelligence, tensions between power blocs, ultra-rich people investing in immortality while building their own starships – it’s all there. In Clarke’s 1973 book Rendezvous with Rama, an ’Oumuamua-like object is discovered zipping through the solar system. Humanity is able to send a ship to the interstellar visitor, and first contact is made with an alien spacecraft. The people of Earth in 2023 could use a friendly partner in the universe, as Loeb suggests.
