2001, Hello

The most extraordinary outburst of global insanity ever recorded occurred on 1 January 2000. No, I am not referring to the infamous Y2K bug, which was a real, though fortunately trivial, problem. I am pointing the finger of scorn at the millions who welcomed the millennium one year too early.

It still seems incredible that anyone could fail to understand that because the Western calendar does not start at zero, but at one, the millennium would not begin until the first of January 2001. To those who are still inclined to argue, let me put this question: If you ordered 10 kilos of sugar at your grocer, would you feel that you had your money's worth if the scales started at one instead of zero?

However, don't take my word for it: Here is the Times of London laying down the law on the subject in its most magisterial style:

"The question of when the present century ends is one of the most absurd that can engage the public attention and we are astonished to find it has been the subject of so much dispute. It is a silly, childish discussion and only exposes the want of brains of those who maintain a contrary opinion to that we have stated."

And what had the Times stated? "The present century will not terminate until January the 1st 1801. unless it can be made out that 99 are 100." (Editorial: 26th December 1799.)

Does this (concluded on page 188) 2001, Hello (continued from page 89) suggest that the level of intelligence of H. sapiens has declined in 200 years? Decide for yourself--after you have switched off the evening news.

It is true that 2000 is a more elegant number than 2001--but only for us 10-fingered entities. Most of this planet's arithmetic is now done in binary: to your friendly laptop computer--and perhaps to the dactylically challenged dolphins--the number 2000 is 11111010000. Anyone feel like celebrating that?

But perhaps I am unduly biased in favor of 11111010001--sorry, 2001. It will soon be 40 years since my now badly missed friend Stanley Kubrick wrote to me expressing his ambition to make the "proverbial good science fiction movie," with results that are now fairly well known.

I recently had the very emotional experience of seeing the final version of 2001, on which Stanley had been working during the last years of his life, at London's National Film Theater. There was no change in the story line, but pictures and sounds had been digitally enhanced. Most astonishing, I do not think it could have been much improved even by the revolution in special effects that has occurred during the past quarter century--many as spin-offs from the movie! Although the off-world sequences might now be made for a 10th of the time and expense than it cost during the Sixties, they would not have looked any better.

And I make no apologies for the film's too-hopeful time line. When our Space Odyssey was released in the spring of 1968, no humans had ventured beyond low earth orbit. The Apollo program, however, was racing full speed ahead to achieve President Kennedy's promise that man would go to the moon in the Sixties. So when Stanley and I met for the first time in Trader Vic's on April 22, 1964, it did seem quite possible that by such a far-off date as 2001 there would be orbiting hotels and even bases on the moon. If we were unduly optimistic, it is worth recalling that during the Apollo euphoria, there were serious plans to land on Mars--in the Eighties! All these things could have happened if not for Watergate, Vietnam and post-Apollo fatigue ("been there, done that").

It may not be remembered, in what I hope is the peaceful century that lies ahead, that the main motivations behind the drive into space were military and political--certainly not scientific, nor straightforward human curiosity. So I am particularly proud of the fact that we stuck our necks out in those days of the Cold War by showing Russians as ordinary human beings. My ebullient friend Alexei Leonov (the first space walker) told me after the film's European premiere: "Now I feel I have been in space twice." (And I've just remembered an odd coincidence: Alexei's pet parrot is called Lolita. I must ask him why he named it after the work that did much to establish Stanley's reputation as a daring director.)

Even when Peter Hyams' excellent sequel 2010 was released in 1984 (another date to conjure with) the joint Soviet--U.S. mission shown in it must have seemed rather unlikely. Who would have dreamed by the end of the century, a few (rather well-heeled) American guests were booking into a Russian space hotel--even though the aging Mir would only rate one and a half stars in the Michelin Guide?

I believe that, with one possible exception, virtually everything shown in the movie will be achieved during the next few decades. Many advanced launch systems are on the drawing boards, and the time is right for the DC-3 of space; the Shuttle was the first--if rather faltering--step in that direction.

And sooner or later the noisy and inefficient rocket will be superseded by something better. NASA's recently established Institute for Advanced Concepts is looking at a whole range of future possibilities--even the fabled "space drive," beloved by science fiction writers. Perhaps the rocket will play the same role in space that the balloon did in the air.

The possible exception? That is, of course, contact with extraterrestrial intelligence; there is no way of predicting when--or if--this will happen. Despite all claims to the contrary by clowns, crooks and crackpots (choose any one), we do not have the slightest proof that life exists anywhere beyond the earth--yet who can doubt that it does, in this cosmos of a trillion suns? The proof is more likely to come through radio, or, as in 2001, the discovery of an ancient alien artifact, rather than by direct contact.

Incredibly, Congress recently ordered NASA not to use any funds for what could be the most important search in human history. Sometimes one despairs of finding intelligent life in Washington.

In 1965 Lloyd's of London, suspecting that he knew something they didn't, refused to insure the ever-cautious Stanley against the detection of alien intelligence--at least until our movie had finished its first run. The odds are shortening: It would be even riskier to issue such a policy today. I suspect that during the coming century we will learn the truth.

Will we meet E.T.--or Darth Vader?

Prepare for both.