So, who here has seen the movie, 2010, and if so, what did you think of it?

"You can tell your children of the day when everyone looked up and realized that they were only tenants of this world. We have been given a new lease and a warning from the landlord. "

All these base
Are belong to you
Except Europa.
Move no Zig there.
Use them together
For great justice.

To get serious for a millisecond, Arthur C. Clarke changed the setting from 2001's Iapetus (a moon of Saturn, which we knew at the time was oddly-colored on one side and not on the other - and which we now know to be due to Iapetus' plowing through Saturnian ring material)...

Umm, where was I.  Oh yeah, Europa.  Europa's a better place to look for life than Iapetus - but back in the 60s - ages before the Pioneer and Voyager proves - Iapetus was one of the weirdest places in the Solar System, because all we knew about it was that it was 7 times brighter on one side than the other.  By the time he wrote 2010, Europa was by far the more interesting place to look for evidence of life. 

I'm still bummed that JIMO never got funded.  Clarke was only speculating on a liquid ocean beneath Europa's crust, which was later confirmed by Galileo, but JIMO would have established the thickness of Europa's ice crust during the mid-2020s, and depending on its results, I might have lived to see a lander burrow through it and explore the ocean below.  We're 99% certain that the oceans of Europa contain environments analagous to Terran hydrothermal vents. 

Second to Mars, Europa is the only place in the solar system in which Earth-based lifeforms (albeit microbial ones) could be dropped off and in which they'd thrive and set up an ecosystem of their own.  We shouldn't do that until we're sure that both worlds are sterile.  I might live to see that conclusion reached for Mars, but even if EJSM launches in 2020 and answers that question, I won't live to see what's under Europa's crust.

What made Arthur C. Clarke's novels so much fun to read was how much he got right, even though he was only making educated guesses.

"You can tell your children of the day when everyone looked up and realized that they were only tenants of this world. We have been given a new lease and a warning from the landlord. "

2010 was the mild version of his idea.  The hard version is that Supernovae are industrial accidents..  Of the remainder of the Odyssey saga, 2061 is by far the better novel, but 3001 is worth a read, if for nothing else than that it's one of Clarke's last attempts at laying out his predictions for the future development of technology.

2010.  I liked it alot. I thought the performances were really good and it was a great vehicle for Roy Scheider.  If you ever see the 'making of' watch it.  they had a hard time with it but the acting never suffers.

I'm a fan.