'If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible he is almost certainly right, but if he says that it is impossible he is very probably wrong.'
In 1969, I met Clark and asked him if he thought his permanent Moon base and regular trips to the planets would really be reality by the year 2000 as shown in his movie.
He said yes.
He had way too much faith in our politicians. Nixon had no interest in the manned space program, since it was a Kennedy/Democrat invention (in his eyes - it actually started under Ike). This was, IMHO, his greatest failing outside of the character flaws that did him in with Watergate. We DID have the technical capacity for the base and the regular trips, and we’d be far better off materially if we had done that.