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| 3001 The final Odissey |
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Страница 90 из 91 -- -- -- -- -- -- Today, of course, it seems ludicrous that we could have imagined giant space-stations, orbiting Hilton Hotels, and expeditions to Jupiter as early as 2001. It is now difficult to realize that back in the 1960s there were serious plans for permanent Moon bases and Mars landings -- by 1990! Indeed, in the CBS studio, immediately after the Apollo 11 launch, I heard the Vice-President of the United States proclaim exuberantly: `Now we must go to Mars!` As it turned out, he was lucky not to go to prison. That scandal, plus Vietnam and Watergate, is one of the reasons why these optimistic scenarios never materialized. When the movie and book of "2001 A Space Odyssey" made their appearance in 1968, the possibility of a sequel had never crossed my mind. But in 1979 a mission to Jupiter really did take place, and we obtained our first close-ups of the giant planet and its astonishing family of moons. The Voyager space-probes* were, of course, unmanned, but the images they sent back made real -- and totally unexpected -- worlds from what had hitherto been merely points of light in the most powerful telescopes. The continually erupting sulphur volcanoes of Io, the multiply-impacted face of Callisto, the weirdly contoured landscape of Ganymede -- it was almost as if we had discovered a whole new Solar System. The temptation to explore it was irresistible; hence 2010 Odyssey Two, which also gave me the opportunity to find out what happened to David Bowman, after he had awakened in that enigmatic hotel room. -- -- -- -- -- -- * Which employed a `slingshot` or `gravity-assist` manoeuvre by flying close to Jupiter -- -- -- -- -- -- In 1981, when I started writing the new book, the Cold War was still in progress, and I felt I was going out on a limb -- as well as risking criticism -- by showing a joint US-Russian mission. I also underlined my hope of future co-operation by dedicating the novel to Nobelist Andrei Sakharov (then still in exile) and Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov -- who, when I told him in `Star Village` that the ship would be named after him, exclaimed, with typical ebullience, `Then it will be a good ship!` It still seems incredible to me that, when Peter Hyams made his excellent film version in 1983, he was able to use the actual close-ups of the Jovian moons obtained in the Voyager missions (some of them after helpful computer processing by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, source of the originals). However, far better images were expected from the ambitious Galileo mission, due to carry out a detailed survey of the major satellites over a period of many months. Our knowledge of this new territory, previously obtained only from a brief flyby, would be enormously expanded -- and I would have no excuse for not writing "Odyssey Three". Alas -- something tragic on the way to Jupiter. It had been planned to launch Galileo from the Space Shuttle in 1986 -- but the Challenger disaster ruled out that option, and it soon became clear -- precisely as was done by Discovery in the book version of 2001 -- that we would get no new information from Io and Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, for at least another decade. I decided not to wait, and the (1985) return of Halley`s Comet to the inner Solar System gave me an irresistible theme. Its next appearance in 2061 would be good timing for a third Odyssey, though as I was not certain when I could deliver it I asked my publisher for a rather modest advance. It is with much sadness that I quote the dedication of "2061 Odyssey Three": TO THE MEMORY OF JUDY-LYNN DEL REY, EDITOR EXTRAORDINARY, who bought this book for one dollar -- but never knew if she got her money`s worth. Obviously there is no way in which a series of four science-fiction |
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