The Obituary of Robert Forward

The Obituary of Robert Forward
The New York Times Monday, September 30, 2002

Robert L. Forward, a science fiction writer, physicist and inventor
whose 11 novels were inspired by his research into gravitational
physics and advanced space propulsion, died at his home in Seattle
on Sept. 21. He was 70.

The cause of death was cancer, said his son-in-law, Ben Mattlin.

With his first book, Dragon's Egg (1980), Dr. Forward established a
reputation as a creator of fantastic worlds that were solidly based
on scientific principles. He set Dragon's Egg and its sequel,
Starquake (1985), on a neutron star, a highly compressed remnant of
an exploding star where gravity is 67 billion times stronger than
Earth's. The star's inhabitants, whom he called cheelas, lived the
equivalent of about 45 minutes.

In his final book, Saturn Rukh (Tor Books, 1997), his attention to
accuracy led him to include an appendix of mathematical tables and
astronomical diagrams for readers interested in verifying the
manoeuvres of the book's spacecraft.

He also wrote The Flight of the Dragonfly (1984), which he renamed
Rocheworld, and followed it with four sequels.

Dr. Forward, who held a PhD in physics from the University of
Maryland, began his literary career while working as a senior
scientist at the Hughes Aircraft Co.'s laboratory in Malibu, Calif.
He often explained he had advised so many science fiction writers on
the technical details of space flight and other scientific issues
that he decided to take up writing himself.

At Hughes and later at companies he founded, Forward Unlimited (in
1987) and Tethers Unlimited (in 1994), Dr. Forward devoted his
research efforts to propulsion systems for space travel.

He studied the potential for antimatter propulsion (similar to the
system that powers the Starship Enterprise on Star Trek) for the
U.S. Air Force and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

For epic interstellar journeys, he envisioned a rocketless vehicle
that would be manufactured in space and equipped with an ultrathin
sail as big as Texas.

The ship would be propelled by a laser beam or high-energy particles
shot from Earth; travelling at 55,000 miles per second, it would
reach the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, in less than 50 years.

Dr. Forward applied this concept of heavenly sailing ships to a
somewhat more practical purpose when he designed a satellite, called
a statite, that could hover 200,000 miles above one of the poles,
held in place by sails filled by solar winds. In 1993, his design
won a patent, one of the 20 that he received.

Robert Lull Forward was born in Geneva, N.Y., on Aug. 15, 1932. He
served in the U.S. Air Force, reaching the rank of captain. He
received his bachelor's degree in physics from the University of
Maryland and a master's in applied physics from the University of
California at Los Angeles. For his doctorate, he built and operated
the world's first bar antenna for the detection of gravitational
radiation, which is now at the Smithsonian Institution.

Dr. Forward received much praise for his science fiction novels,
although it was sometimes qualified. In The New York Times Book
Review in 1993, Gerald Jonas wrote that in Camelot 30K, Dr. Forward
wasted "no time on frills like plot and character development."
Still, Mr. Jonas concluded, "he has fashioned an intellectual
puzzle, pure and simple, with a wonderfully clever solution that
blew my own tentative hypotheses sky-high."

Dr. Forward is survived by his wife of 48 years, Martha, three
daughters, a son and seven grandchildren.