A lot has happen since the last newsletter in the world around us!
The positive outlook in a post 9-11 world is that this newsletter is focused towards the future - today.

New Discovery One and Leonov blueprints are almost completed. The Discovery interior drawings will be in a flash embedded page in the arts section in November. No Discovery blueprints will be available for downloads from this project. With the cooperation of the British Interplanetary Society, we’ll have some interesting content for our presentation. It’s taken us almost two years to get this idea off the drawing board and 7 months to complete but we’re almost there.

Disk space is very expensive on our website and we’ve gone over our quota. This has forced us to dump all of our mpg movies and radio shows for the time being. We’re researching other multimedia audio and movie technology as an alternative solution to our problems but if you know anyone out there that can host our files that suck up gigabytes, let me know. At this stage we are at about 250 MB and we do plan to double our quota a year from now.
I’m also looking for pictures from the Tech Museum "2001" exhibit held last year in San Jose for my website if you were there last year. Contact me if you have any interesting shots for the exhibit pages.

Larry Evans reminds us about the "2001" universe in the year 2002 this month:

Monday, September 9
Survey Team launched from Kennedy Space Center to Space Station 5. They enter hibernation laboratory facility in newly opened second wheel of station.
Tuesday, September 10
Under high security, Survey Team transfers to Discovery 1 where they enter hibernaculums and undergo hibernation procedure. All spacecraft systems check out nominal and flight is given authorization from Mission Control to proceed.
Thursday, September 12
Commander and Pilot board Discovery 1, prepare for lunar checkout
flight.
Friday, September 13 09:32 EDT
Six primary propulsion system engines ignited and Discovery 1 embarks test flight from Earth to Moon. Final checkout and preparations made for launch to Jupiter.
Saturday, September 21 15:13 EDT
Discovery 1 (Call sign: X-Ray Delta One) launches from lunar orbit to explore Jupiter system. Transit time: 257 days.

I like to add to our fictional news for this year from the book, "2010: odyssey two":

2002: Dr. Floyd meets Professor Chang at the IUA conference (International Astronomical Union Congress) who will be on China's Tsien mission to Europa eight years from now. This was right before China's Second Cultural Revolution.

I was very disappointed to hear that American pop-artist, Lance Bass from the singing group 'N Sync could not raise the funds in time for his trip to the International Space Station. My support for this celebrity was to help influence his young fans to support space exploration. Lance is still planning his training for a future trip into space. You can read more about him at the MSNBC website: http://www.msnbc.com/news/765523.asp?cp1=1

It looks like NASA is ready to launch STS-112 on Oct 2nd if all goes well! Space Shuttle Atlantis and its six-member crew will deliver the S1 (S-One) Truss to the International Space Station. For detail information about the mission, visit Human Space Flight website: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/

"2001" fan, Dana Lubich reports to the World Tonight that Globaleffects.Com is reproducing the actual suits from 2001 for rent. He’ll keep us posted on the latest developments.

4 weeks ago, I finally got to see Minority Report and I have to say this picture is on my all time list of great films or at least under the science fiction list and it’s a very small list. I have to give Steven Spielberg credit for a brilliant production. The futuristic car from the film is featured in Popular Science. You can read more about it in the newsletter below. For more information about the picture, visit Dreamworks: http://www.spielberg-dreamworks.com/minorityreport/

Website Updates:
When I introduced many of my modern furnishing collections on-line two weeks ago, I had an overwhelming response. This week, we introduce long time fan to the "2001" Exhibit site, Dirk Behlau who shares with us his studio and eye-candy finds:
http://www.2001exhibit.org/arts/furnishings3.html
Or
http://www.2001exhibit.org/arts/space_age.html

The World Tonight Newsletter:
We’ve modified and updated all of our newsletters:
http://www.2001exhibit.org/2001expo.html
Or
http://www.2001exhibit.org/press/2001exhibit.html

HAL 9000 UPDATE: Mike Jackson, HAL Screensaver:
Mike’s new website is on hold for a new domain name for the website, which is under construction. But you can access Mike’s screensaver at http://mentalfoto.tripod.com/screensaver/index.html

Even though I’m always busy with life, please continue to send anything you have on "2001/2010" news to report for the World Tonight and I’ll give you special credit! Until then…

See you next Wednesday (Frank).