Et Tu, HAL 9000 Copyright © March 30, 2003 Greg Utrecht I was talking to a friend about the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey" and found out that what people need explained is what was it they saw. Foolishly, I had been trying to explain what it was that Arthur C Clarke and Stanley Kubrick had cleverly hidden from them. It seems to me that the movie is full of clever little jokes. Clarke and Kubrick I think were intentionally pulling the wool over the viewer's eyes, so that 1968 era viewers would leave the theatre feeling confident of two things - that distant space travel was impossible, and that computers were inherently insidious and would still be so in the year 2001. I thought I could explain the jokes in the movie, but what I found instead was that the average viewer of "2001" was too confused to be confident of anything. Clarke and Kubrick had aimed over our heads. A recap of the movie is called for. The movie is about space flight on a ship called "Discovery" to Jupiter. One remarkable thing about the movie is that it was the first modern film which depicted what space travel might be like. The movie had a big impact on society at a time when space flight was new and exciting. "Discovery" is a British sounding name, but the crew is American and one of the clever little jokes in the film seems to be about these two square American astronauts living in a British designed round ship. The movie consists of four acts. In the first act we see apes and monkey-men cavorting and competing for food in an African savanna. Finally one of them invents the first tool, seemingly inspired by the sudden presence of a large black monolith. Act one represents the discovery of tools and the awakening of intelligence. Act two shows the result of thousands of years of using tools. Space flight is shown, with space shuttles, space stations, moon bases and passenger service on what was once a popular airline called Pan American Airways. This is the first time anyone had any visual grasp of what space travel might be like other than still photographs, even though Russians and Americans had been making short trips into space for about five years. There are two other noteworthy points in act two. One is that the segue from act one is from an ape tool thrown in the air to a small earth orbiting satellite. In Making of 2001 JeromeAgel states that this satellite, and another just like it, are thermonuclear bombs orbiting earth on remote control. Thanks to Kennedy and Krushchev there are no orbiting bombs. We have a treaty banning such orbiting weapons. Fortunately this aspect of the movie has been proven wrong. The second point to make for act two is that the Werner von Braun style of space station is half completed, and yet when the moon shuttle lands at the American moon base we see a huge installation supporting thousands of geologists and engineers and manufacturing plants. Landings of the large cargo carrying moon shuttle seem so commonplace that astronauts on an outside survey team do not even look up. It turns out that mining moon rocks for creation of earth orbiting satellites is very economical compared to the cost of lifting metals from earth into orbit. The cost of lifting metal from the moon is much less than the cost of using earth based rockets for the same job. It even seems to be possible that manufactured material can be moved into earth orbit from the moon using electric catapults without any need for chemical rockets. Act two ends when a second obelisk is found buried on the moon by a geology expedition. The geologists were trying to dig up and find the source of a "Magnetic Anomaly" that their instruments had measured. In act three we see the two square pegs flying their ship through the asteroid belt and on to Jupiter. They work 12 hour shifts so that they almost never see each other. When we do see them they don't talk to each other at all - one is waking up, one is having dinner. One is left handed, one is right handed. One jogs and shadow boxes in a frustrated way, leading me to think that he is a little rebellious, frustrated, he is revolting, and perhaps he is not supposed to jog at all. It seems to be a waste of oxygen. In 1968 the use of exercise to counteract space induced bone mass loss was not known. Finally we see the computer go crazy, and kill the crew except for Dave, who shuts off the computer while it sings a British nursery rhyme taught to it by its creator, Doctor Langley. Act three ends when Dave continues the trip in his space suit. Apparently the life support systems on the ship went out with the computer. Arriving at Jupiter Dave encounters a third black obelisk, only this one is a "Star Gate". In act four Dave travels through the "Star Gate" and visits civilizations on other stars, becomes an old man and finally returns to earth as an embryo. This is the most confusing part of the movie. In four acts then: A bunch of apes played by real people in costume, some cool space flight which was the first time anyone had any visuals of what space flight might be like, some really boring and depressing scenes onboard ship accompanied by appropriately depressing music, and then star travel. My title "Et Tu HAL 9000" refers of course to the computer on board the "Discovery". I chose this title due to an odd coincidence of interplanetary flight. Arthur C Clarke wrote extensively about the science of space flight, as did others such as Eugen Sanger. For trips to Jupiter the most energy economical trip, during favorable orbital positions, will take 33 months. Clarke's book based on the film gives a few clues about the speed of "Discovery". After three weeks she has gone 80 million miles, 100 million after 30 days. Clarke wrote that her engines are off, and that they only burned for five hours on leaving earth orbit. First guesses at "Discovery" speed indicate the mission is going a little faster than the most energy economical trip. It may be that her speed was increased to save on life support costs. I estimated a trip lasting between 25.25 months and 26.5 months. Assuming that Discovery left earth on January 1, 2001 it seems possible that Jupiter rendezvous and HAL 9000 nervous breakdown would occur on March 15, 2003, the Ides of March, which is now safely in the past. But "Discovery" departure at the beginning of the millenium may not be a correct assumption. Another interpretation of the movie is that the magnetic anomaly was discovered on January 1, 2001. In that case the Discovery mission begins 18 months later. This launch date of July 1, 2002 leads to a prediction of the HAL 9000 malfunction of September 15, 2004. There may still be time to download an upgrade to the operating system of our Heuristic Algorithmic Language computer, model 9000. *** May be copied freely, but not for sale