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发信人: by (春天的小懒虫), 信区: SFworld
标  题: 2010: Odyssey Two (0)
发信站: 哈工大紫丁香 (Wed Oct  6 14:20:52 1999), 转信

                        Author's Note
    The novel 2001: A Space Odyssey was written during the
years 1964-8 and was published in July 1968, shortly after
release of the movie. As I have described in The Last Worlds
of 2001, both projects proceeded simultaneously, with feed-
back in each direction. Thus I often had the strange ex-
perience of revising the manuscript attar viewing rushes
based upon an earlier version of the story -- a stimulating,
but rather expensive, way of writing a novel.
    As a result, there is a much closer parallel between book
and movie than is usually the case, but there are also major
differences. In the novel, the destination of the spaceship
Discovery was Iapetus (or Japetus), most enigmatic of
Saturn's many moons. The Saturnian system was reached
via Jupiter: Discovery made a close approach to the giant
planet, using its enormous gravitational field to produce a
'slingshot' effect and to accelerate it along the second lap of
its journey. Exactly the same manoeuvre was used by the
Voyager space probes in 1979, when they made the first
detailed reconnaissance of the outer giants.
    In the movie, however, Stanley Kubrick wisely avoided
confusion by setting the third confrontation between Man
and Monolith among the moons of Jupiter. Saturn was
dropped from the script entirely, though Douglas Trumbull
later used the expertise he had acquired to film the
ringed planet in his own production, Silent Running.
    No one could have imagined, back in the mid-sixties, that
the exploration of the moons of Jupiter lay, not in the next
century, but only fifteen years ahead. Nor had anyone
dreamed of the wonders that would be found there --
although we can be quite certain that the discoveries of the
twin Voyagers will one day be surpassed by even more
unexpected finds. When 2001 was written, Io, Europa,
Ganymede, and Callisto were mere pinpoints of light in
even the most powerful telescope; now they are worlds
each unique, and one of them -- Io -- is the most volcanically
active body in the Solar System.
    Yet, all things considered, both movie and book stand up
quite well in the light of these discoveries, and it is
fascinating to compare the Jupiter sequences in the film with the
actual movies from Voyager cameras. But clearly, anything
written today has to incorporate the results of the 1979
explorations: the moons of Jupiter are no longer uncharted
territory.
    And there is another, more subtle, psychological factor to
be taken into consideration. 2001 was written in an age that
now lies beyond one of the Great Divides in human history;
we are sundered from it forever by the moment when Neil
Armstrong set foot upon the Moon. The date 20 July 1969
was still half a decade in the future when Stanley Kubrick
and I started thinking about the 'proverbial good science-
fiction movie' (his phrase). Now history and fiction have
become inextricably intertwined.
    The Apollo astronauts had already seen the film when
they left for Moon. The crew of Apollo 8, who at
Christmas 1968 became the first men ever to set eyes upon
the Lunar Farside, told me that they had been tempted to
radio back the discovery of a large black monolith: alas,
discretion prevailed.
    And there were, later, almost uncanny instances of nature
imitation art. Strangest of all was the saga of Apollo 13 in
1970.
    As a good opening, the Command Module, which
houses the crew, had been christened Odyssey. Just before
the explosion of the oxygen tank that caused the mission to
be aborted, the crew had been playing Rechard Strauss's
Zarathustra theme, now universally identified with the
movie. Immediately after the loss of power, Jack Swigert
radioed back to Mission Control: 'Houston, we've had a
problem.' The words that Hal used to astronaut Frank
Poole on a similar occasion were: 'Sorry to interrupt the
festivities, but we have a problem.'
    When the report of the Apollo 13 mission was later pub-
lished, NASA Administrator Tom Paine sent me a copy,
and noted under Swiggert's words: 'Just as you always said it
would be, Arthur.' I still get a very strange feeling when I
contemplate this whole series of events -- almost, indeed, as
if I share a certain responsibility.
    Another resonance is less serious, but equally striking.
one of the most technically brilliant sequences in the movie
was that in which Frank Poole was shown running round
and round the circular track of the giant centrifuge, held in
place by the 'artificial gravity' produced by its spin.
    Almost a decade later, the crew of the superbly successful
Skylab realized that its designers had provided them with a
similar geometry; a ring of storage cabinets formed a
smooth, circular band around the space station's interior.
Skylab, however, was not spinning, but this did not deter
its ingenious occupants. They discovered that they could
run around the track, just like mice in a squirrel cage, to
produce a result visually indistinguishable from that shown
in 2001. And they televised the whole exercise back to Earth
(need I name the accompanying music?) with the comment:
'Stanley Kubrick should see this.' As in due course he did,
because I sent him the telecine recording. (I never got it
back; Stanley uses a tame Black Hole as a filing system.)
    Yet another link between film and reality is the painting
by Apollo-Soyuz Commander, Cosmonaut Alexei
Leonov, 'Near the Moon'. I first saw it in 1968, when 2001
was presented at the United Nations Conference on the
Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. Immediately after the screening,
Alexei pointed out to me that his concept (on page 32 of
the Leonov - Sokolov book The Stars Are Awaiting Us,
Moscow, 1967) shows exactly the same line-up as the
movie's opening: the Earth rising beyond the Moon, and
the Sun rising beyond them both. His autographed sketch
of the painting now hangs on my office wall; for further
details see Chapter 12.
    Perhaps this is the appropriate point to identify another
and less well-known name appearing in these pages, that
of Hsue-shen Tsien. In 1936, with the great Theodore von
Karman and Frank J. Malina, Dr. Tsien founded the
Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory of the California
Institute of Technology (GALCIT) -- the direct ancestor of
Pasadena's famed Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He was also
the first Goddard Professor at Caltech, and contributed
greatly to American rocket research through the 1940s.
Later, in one of the most disgraceful episodes of the
McCarthy period, he was arrested on trumped-up security
charges when he wished to return to his native country. For
the last two decades, he has been one of the leaders of the
Chinese rocket programme.
    Finally, there is the strange case of the 'Eye of Japetus'-
Chapter 35 of 2001. Here I describe astronaut Bowman's
discovery on the Saturnian moon of a curious feature: 'a
brilliant white oval, about four hundred miles long and two
hundred wide ... perfectly symmetrical ... and so sharp-
edged that it almost looked ... painted on the face of the
little moon.' As he came closer, Bowman convinced him-
self that 'the bright ellipse set against the dark background
of the satellite was a huge empty eye staring at him as he
approached ...' Later, he noticed 'the tiny black dot at the
exact center', which turns out to be the Monolith (or one
of its avatars).
    Well, when Voyager 1 transmitted the first photographs
of Iapetus, they did indeed disclose a large, clear-out white
oval with a tiny black dot at the centre. Carl Sagan promptly
sent me a print from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory with
the cryptic annotation 'Thinking of you ...' I do not know
whether to be relieved or disappointed that Voyager 2 has
left the matter still open.
    Inevitably, therefore, the story you are about to read is
something much more complex than a straightforward sequel
to the earlier novel -- or the movie. Where these differ, I
have followed the screen version; however, I have been
more concerned with making this book self-consistent, and
as accurate as possible in the light of current knowledge.
    Which, of course, will once more be out of date by
2001 ...

                                Arthur C. Clarke
                                Colombo, Sri Lanka
                                January 1982

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:-) Helix@163.NET                                                    85958F57
:-( Helix@KALI.COM.CN                                                208CE12C
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