In a 1955 letter to the British rocket scientist Val Cleaver, Arthur Clarke wrote about his view from the island then called Ceylon: "Beautiful night last night. Southern Cross (a very feeble constellation) just above the front gate, with Alpha Centauri beside it. It always gives me an odd feeling to look at Alpha and to realize that's the next stop." The next stop indeed. Cleaver was a fellow member of the British Interplanetary Society who, like Clarke, was instrumental in energizing the society after World War II. Both men served the BIS as its chairman in those years, and after Cleaver's wartime work at De Havilland, he would go on to start a rocket division for the company and become chief engineer for the rocket division of Rolls-Royce. He is perhaps best known as the man behind the Blue Streak missile, but for those with a passion for the works of Arthur C. Clarke, he will always be remembered for his deep friendship with the man, and his energetic contribution to British...