Vladimir Oane's Key Ideas from Rendezvous With Rama
by Arthur Charles Clarke

A generation starship, is a hypothetical type of interstellar ark starship that travels at sub-light speed. Since such a ship might take centuries to reach nearby stars, the original occupants of a generation ship would grow old & die, leaving their descendants to continue traveling. The ship should thus be quite massive as it should provide an livable ecosystem. 

Rama, the ship in Arthur Clarke's book, is the archietypical representation of the concept, and a major cultural influence. 

The entities in Rama are very simple and they don't show signs of traditional "intelligence", being guided by the environment more than reason. 

A common assumption is intelligence should be hard. Complex algorithms pick the best course of action by analizing all the parametrs of a complex model. This is what humans do when they play chess, for example. 

What about a coachroch? Their avoid danger by always running away from light, a very simple heuristic, called Idiothetic behaviour. 

The coachroach did not have to reason his situation. His direct perception had enough information to plot a path to action.

Dr Bose, a Mars resident & member of the Rama comitee, now 115 yrs old, contemplating about living so long:

"He was dealing year after year with the same familiar faces. There were men around the table whom he had worked for half a century. He knew exactly what they would say and how they would vote on any given topic. He wished some day one of them would do something totally unexpected - even something crazy."

Arthur Clarke's book is a major influence in the development of space adventure movies. Multiple franchises, from Alien to Star Trek, have influences that can be traced back to the book. 

The book also inspired the creation of a real Spaceguard, a radar system to look for potentially dangerous asteroids.