The first writer to take a scientific approach to space-flight was Jules Verne, whose From the Earth to the Moon was published in 1865. It might now seem ridiculous to suggest using a gigantic cannon to shoot passengers to the Moon, but Verne relied on the knowledge and technology of the time.

In Robert A. Heinlein’s Rocket Ship Galileo (1947) high-school students build a nuclear-powered rocket and travel to the Moon to defeat Nazi scientists who have got there first. It’s a thrilling tale that had a huge impact on young readers, making the space race seem vitally important.

Any consideration of the impact of science fiction on the conquest of space must celebrate the contributions of Sir Arthur C. Clarke.

In 1951 he wrote a short story entitled The Sentinel, the inspiration for the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey (co-written with Stanley Kubrick), but his nonfiction was arguably an even more important inspiration to scientists. Clarke (below) has been credited as the founding father of satellite communications, thanks to a paper published in 1945 in which he sketched out a system of “rocket stations” in geosynchronous orbit.

Many thought space travel would become part of everyday life. But the end of the 20th century arrived without so much as a hotel on the Moon, never mind extraterrestrial colonies and, in the 1990s, younger writers took up the unsolved problems of space travel.

Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars (1992) begins in 2026, with a voyage to colonise Mars, worked out over time in Green Mars (1993) and Blue Mars (1996): a breathtakingly ambitious series.

In Gradisil (2006) Adam Roberts invented a new method of achieving orbit without rockets because, he explained: “I wanted to find a way in which ordinary people could start to colonise space under their own steam.” Whether his vision can be developed, or is a modern version of Verne’s cannon, only time will tell.

Times recommends

• Point-and-go computers consign mouse to history
• YoYotech Fi7epower: the world's fastest PC
• Bridging the gap between mind and machine