The ship reaches Rama, now inside Venus’s orbit, a month after the ship is first discovered by astronomers on Earth. The Endeavor, a manned survey vessel captained by Commander Bill Norton, is sent to explore Rama while it is still within Earth’s solar system. In the pictures, Rama appears to be a perfect, featureless cylinder about thirty-four miles long. The photographs reveal that the object is not an asteroid but an alien spaceship, the first humankind has ever encountered. An unmanned probe is sent to take photographs of the object-the probe is named “Sita,” after Rama’s wife in the story. They name the object “Rama,” after the deity from the Smriti religious text, the Ramayana. In the year 2131, astronomers monitoring the system detect what they initially believe is a large asteroid outside of Jupiter’s orbit that appears to have originated in interstellar space. Following the disastrous landing of an asteroid in Northeast Italy in the year 2077, Earth’s government sets up a system called Spaceguard for the early detection of objects within the solar system that could potentially hit Earth (a real Spaceguard system of the same name has been in development by NASA, with Clarke’s blessing, since 1992). The story details the exploration of a mysterious alien vessel, called “Rama” by the earthlings, that appears in Earth’s solar system in the year 2131. Independently, Lee would go on to pen two other novels set in the Rama universe. The book was initially intended to be a stand-alone novel but when, following its release, it was met with commercial success and critical acclaim, Clarke teamed up with writer and engineer Gentry Lee to co-author three sequels. Clarke’s collective works have sold more than one hundred million copies worldwide. The novel was awarded both the prestigious Hugo and Nebula awards for science fiction and fantasy, as well as the British Science Fiction Association Award in 1973.
Rendezvous with Rama (1973) is the first in a series of science fiction novels by British author Sir Arthur C.
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