On the evening of 9 October 1948, at St Martin's School, 107 Charing Cross Road, London, Olaf Stapledon addressed the British Interplanetary Society. The Society's journal (JBIS 7:6, November 1948) printed not only the address but the discussion that followed, formally opened by Arthur C. Clarke — then 30 years old, nineteen years before 2001. The text below is transcribed from the Internet Archive's scan of the journal, with its optical-character errors corrected; words mangled beyond recovery are marked (…). The address itself is here, beside his manuscript notes.
The vote of thanks
Mr. R. A. Smith proposed a vote of thanks to the speaker, saying that he was extremely grateful for the philosophical support he had given to the interplanetary enterprise. It was hard, however, to feel any kinship or sympathy with some of the life-forms that Dr. Stapledon had invented for the colonisation of the large planets. To this Dr. Stapledon replied that he could accept any life-form embodying the fundamental values which he had described (…).
Clarke opens the discussion
Mr. A. C. Clarke then formally opened the discussion, commenting first on some technical points. He thought that life — though not intelligent life — might be more common and more varied in the Solar System than generally imagined. Even ignoring the four giant planets (which seemed to be partly gaseous) there were (…) satellites of over a million square miles, and at least two hundred asteroids of over ten thousand square miles area. We had plenty of exploring to do!
Dr. Stapledon had touched on the possibility of telepathic contact with other races, but presumably as far as the Solar System was concerned, some sort of clairvoyance would be required, since there would be no intelligence to "transmit" at the other end. Mr. Clarke had often been given vivid descriptions of Martian (…) characters, and he hoped that, before the first expedition, such reports would provide a unique opportunity for a convincing proof. However, the Technical Committee would be most annoyed if, after it had worked for years on atomic spaceships, the clairvoyants got to Mars first.
Dr. Stapledon, Mr. Clarke thought, had somewhat over-estimated the admitted difficulties of interstellar flight. If highly efficient atomic step-rockets could be developed, speeds of over 90 per cent of the velocity of light were theoretically possible. The nearest stars could thus be reached in five or ten years — the subjective time might be much less than this, thanks to relativity effects.
Mr. Clarke did not think that Man could ever take part in a Galactic culture, even assuming that the technical difficulties involved could be overcome. The human mind would be strained to the utmost to deal with a solar civilisation of (…) worlds — a galactic society implied an increase in complexity of perhaps a thousand million. However, it was foolish to worry about these ultimate questions: we should do all we could to make the best of our own planet, and of the other worlds when we reached them.
From the floor
Many members of the large audience then took part in the discussion, and the following are some of the points raised.
One speaker suggested that before human beings colonised Venus its climate might be modified by suitable plant forms projected from Earth, adding that perhaps terrestrial life came originally from Mars in a similar manner.
Another deplored loose talk of destroying the human race by atomic energy; fissile materials were so rare that it seemed most unlikely that they could ever be used to alter climates or geographical features.
Another speaker wanted to know what would happen if we met a race at about the same level of culture. Which would pickle which? It was suggested that there would be insuperable difficulties in communication if we encountered beings whose senses were entirely different from ours. There might be a failure of understanding like that depicted in Wells' Country of the Blind.
Another asked whether it might not be better to adapt non-human terrestrial life for the planets instead of trying to evolve new forms of man.
A final speaker said that if we encountered inferior races, we must not put them in reservations but educate them. The selection of suitable colonists would also be a difficult psychological problem.
Stapledon replies
In reply, Dr. Stapledon said that though in this time of crisis we must put our own house in order, scientific endeavour must not be too utilitarian, but must always be opening up new frontiers. We must also preserve a sense of humility and piety, (…) lest humanity be guilty of (…) achievement.
He agreed that the sun had the potentialities of atomic energy. Our present use of heavy elements was only a beginning — later we might release power from the lighter ones, as the stars do.
If we met a race that nearly matched us in culture, Dr. Stapledon hoped that co-operation would be possible, and that we would not treat it as we had treated the aborigines. On the other hand, if it was superior and turned Earth into a reservation, that would be the end of humanity, as it would lose the will to live. He agreed that we should try to educate other races — as long as we were sure we were educating them up and not down to our level.
He suggested that races with utterly different senses were impossible. If they shared the universe with us, then they must have at least some senses in common with mankind, since they would have to perceive and manipulate matter. Even if they used senses outside our range (e.g. electrical, infra- or ultra-visual) we would still be able to comprehend them.
Dr. Stapledon did not think that it would be practicable to develop non-human terrestrial species for interplanetary colonisation. It would be too great a task to bring them up to our level first. According to Huxley, no other existing species could develop human intelligence — they were all too specialised in other directions.