Sorry, but that's as far as the fiction goes. Of course some of the people in the piece are real, like NASA Administrator Dan Goldin, Michael Collins, Jim Lovell, and of course President Clinton. I guess Clinton would mind the least, since he lent himself out to play himself in "Contact". It was a fun bit of reality is as strange as fiction...I particularly liked putting Lovell and Collins on the surface of the moon, since they never got the chance to get there in real life. Maybe they yet will. I hope they don't mind...      I saw Lovell the other day on Good Morning America arguing for some more balanced press coverage of the real life drama that Mir has become. There's hardly a positive note in any of the current press coverage for the little space station that has lasted longer than our own Skylab ever did. Though he's probably right, he at least put forward that we should give Mir a dignified retirement.      The rest of the 2001 material may have left you going, "Huh? Who is this Whitehead dude?!?" Well, I finally got my hands on "The Lost Worlds of 2001" by Arthur C. Clarke and found that in an early draft Poole wasn't the co-pilot, but one of the hibernating crew. I figured that throwing Whitehead in would add the touch realism as he probably gets yanked out later as the mission becomes more ominous with the discovery of the Tycho Monolith. The other characters mentioned are taken from "Lost Worlds" as well. It's a great book, though out of print for some strange reason. I hope there's a 30th anniversary theatrical re-release of 2001 next year to bring it back to this generation. I live far from civilization here on the Misissippi Gulf Coast, so if any of you hear anything definite, please let me know. Thanks...      I just finished the new novel "3001" the other day waiting for Hurricane Danny to miss us here on the Gulf Coast and it has a rather apologetic epilogue from Clarke about the lack of consistancy in the four books. He even changed the background of growing up in Flagstaff, AZ from Bowman to Poole for the latest and last(?) novel. His excuse, it's fiction, stupid! I was a bit disappointed to find that the aliens behind the Monolith turn out to be less than friendly, but it's his world, not mine. I recommend the book if only for its Epilogue and Validictation chapters alone, though I enjoyed it thoroughly. I'm a bit sad that this one wraps it up. Or maybe...      The reason for the now more elaborate site that began with the HAL monitors was to share what I'd learned and have some fun imagining what the world of 2001 that never was would have looked like had it come true. Now it's hard to imagine men ever landing on Mars, much less visiting Jupiter before 2020. HAL has stubbornly refused to become a reality. The ever increasingly sour media has bent over backwards to be negative about men in space. Well, they seem to be a collection of the unhappiest people on planet Earth, period. There seems to be almost no concern whatsoever for the lives of the Mir crew in any of the broadcasts I've seen, which is a big change from the way we all held our breath for Apollo 13. Granted, their situation isn't as immediately grave as Apollo 13's was, but it could become so in a heartbeat.      I hope that those of you too young to remember first hand the way we looked to the many Apollo missions with awe (and prayers) can find in this site some of that way we looked at space exploration and alarm for how small a priority it has become. As the Mars Sojourner lander has proven, there's still so much to learn about our little corner of the Galaxy. I also hope that it satisfies some of your curiosity about 2001 or points you onward to those answers. In the short story from 1948 that the inspiration for 2001 was first drawn from, Clarke's "The Sentinal", it's main astronaut character, upon finding the alien Artifact on the moon, speculates that the aliens that left it will soon be coming. "I do not think we will have to wait for long." I still wonder...      I also want to acknowledge Mr. Clarke and Mr. Kubrick, as well as the other artists who designed so many of the visuals that I've done my best to reproduce here. I hope none of them mind as well as MGM, as their motto has long been "Ars gratia artis", which this Latin deficient photographer has been informed translates to "art for art's sake". If any of you happen to drop by, I'd be thrilled to hear from you. If any visitors happen to know them, please pass along my admiration. I've often wanted to know exactly who created what among the many designs and visuals. I also want to thank all the other 2001 site creators for their correspondences and advice.      Please write if you have suggestions, ideas, material, pictures, corrections, additions, or just liked the site. I'd love to hear from you. And thanks a lot for stopping by. Mike