Last night I watched Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke’s classic on Blue Ray. Although I watched it many years ago it was still quite a novel experience. This time around I was much more interested in the creative and realistic ways they addressed environmental issues such as low-g/zero-g and the use of music combined with sparse use of dialog. The scene where the space shuttle is docking with the giant wheel satellite to the Blue Danube Waltz cracks me up…Almost as much as the headpieces the flight attendants wear. 
Sadly, so little of what was predicted in the movie has come to pass even today, 9 years after 2001. This morning I find myself feeling renewed frustration in humanity’s apparent lack of motivation in further space exploration. It seems so obvious to me what our economy needs right now…What humanity needs…Are goals with a higher purpose than propping up Wall Street or recovering the bloated value of property. We complain there is not enough to go around while 99.99% of our own solar system is yet to be utilized. We’ve just become so lazy and complacent. Where’s the Magellan, Christopher Columbus or Louis and Clarke of the 21st Century?