The numbers of distinct human societies or nations, when our race is twice its present age, may be far greater than the total number of all the men who have ever lived up to the present time.
"We'll Never Conquer Space". Essay by Arthur C. Clarke first published in "Science Digest" (June 1960); later published in Arthur C. Clarke "Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible", 1962, in Arthur C. Clarke "Voices from the Sky", 1965, and in Arthur C. Clarke "Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds!: Collected Essays, 1934-1998", 1999.
