“…computing may someday be organized as a public utility just as the telephone system is a public utility…. Each subscriber needs to pay only for the capacity he [sic] actually uses, but he has access to all programming languages characteristic of a very large system. … Certain subscribers might offer service to other subscribers. … The computer utility could become the basis of a new and important industry.”
“My recollection is that I proposed the [space fountain] scheme [an enormous tower of hollow pipes and magnets, through which tiny iron rings are sent up to space for some reason] in 1982…. The work wasn’t published, because of difficulties with stability and protecting the tower from space junk. … Our scheme involved circulating the magnetic rings and getting almost all the energy back when the rings came down. The tower was to have been built with its base on Baker Island.”