The concept of space travel has been an interest to many since the beginning of time. Today, scientists are moving at a comfortable pace to expand our vast knowledge of the universe. Many authors dreamed of the possibilities while scientists tried to bring them to reality. The book 2001: A Space Odyssey, written by Arthur C. Clarke in the 1960's, proposed ideas about advanced space travel that took place in a time period only two years from now; however, at the current rate of the space program, mankind is nowhere near the technology showed by the book.Clarke uses concepts of space travel that can still only be dreamed of today. Clarke, an author of the sixties, had ventured out to write a book on a subject that many people had scarce knowledge of. However, since Myths and tales of flying to the Moon or the stars are probably as old as humankind, many were interested (Lewis 16). People wanted to read a book that had ideas in it that were beyond the grasp of humankind. Although many of his ideas seemed impossible to accomplish, surprisingly, Clarke proposed a number of realistic ideas. For example, in 1945 Clarke proposed using satellites to relay communications to different parts of Earthmore than 20 years before the first satellite was launched (17). Clarke had stunned many scientists with the proposition of his satellite communication ideas. Furthermore, Clarke could recreate any space travel image of his dreams through his book. His only concern was to make the ideas as imaginable as possible. Unfortunately, scientists knew realistically the universe is determined to throw in every road block that can be imagined (Carroll 1). Space is much more complicated than Clarke could imagine, and modern day scientists know that. The present day space program does not have the technology to accomplish the missions which were proposed in the book. For example, Clarke had the idea for an interstellar mission to Jupiter. It ha...
