2001: A Space Odyssey/Frederick I. Ordway III/Stanley Kubrick/Adam Johnson

 

THE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OF THE MOST IMPORTANT AND INFLUENTIAL FILM EVER MADE. 

In 1964 master film-maker Stanley Kubrick began his epic campaign to make the best science-fiction movie ever made. Already well-known for his remarkable ability to absorb and understand massive amounts of complex information, 

Kubrick set himself the goal of reading every book, and watching every movie available, on the subjects of space flight and alien intelligence. Having convinced himself that it would be possible to accomplish his unique vision he promptly surrounded himself with the best experts in the world. 

His main collaborator, scientist and fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, had already sold Kubrick the rights to several of his short stories; one of which was named The Sentinel. Clarke's short story concerned mankind's first encounter with proof of extra-terrestrial life. Kubrick would use this as the template for his screenplay. 

In January 1965 good fortune would smile on Kubrick and Clarke when a chance meeting at the Harvard Club in Manhattan would lead to the recruiting of Fredrick Ordway III and Harry Lange. 

These two experts had been working in the office of NASA's future projects in Huntsville, Alabama and had coincidentally just completed a book called Intelligence in the Universe. Within two days Kubrick had persuaded Ordway and Lange to join his production team. 

Stanley Kubrick's meticulous attention to detail would be well-served by Ordway and Lange who were both connected at the most intimate levels with virtually every major aerospace company in the world. 

Drawing on an unprecedented well of talent and resources Ordway and Lange would bring the science to Kubrick's set. Whatever detail Kubrick needed, the contractors provided; from giant centrifuges, to robotics, to spacesuits. 

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I asked Rob for more information as to who Ordway and Johnson were. He wrote:

I was very close friends with Fred for the last 15 years of his life. I met him at the 30th anniversary of the Apollo 13 mission. I had been reading his stuff for years before that. When Fred found out I was writing and publishing Space books he asked me if I would republish his NY Times bestseller "The Rocket Team", which I jumped at.

Fred used to be Wernher von Braun's speechwriter in the 1950s and 60s.

He was the absolute epitome of the American gentleman. Polite and dignified to a fault. I never heard him raise his voice or say a bad word about anyone.

Incredibly knowledgeable. He had one of the largest collections of space and science fiction books in America before he ever met von Braun. When America began its space program Fred got a job at Reaction Motors. At the time von Braun was still a prisoner in the US desert.

As progress began on rocketry Fred was writing journals and news sheets and magazine articles.

 Eventually when von Braun was "rehabilitated" and given work to do for the US Army he met Fred and asked him to come and work for him. For a young engineer it was the opportunity of a lifetime to be brought into the heart of the rocket and missile program. 

Von Braun quickly realised that Fred knew everybody, including the Soviets, because Fred was the only American in attendance at the first international astronautical congress in Paris in 1950.

He was one of the main people who brought the world's peoples together to explore space peacefully because he was an officer in US Air Force intelligence and he used to meet with Soviet colonels in Greenwich Village where they would feed him information about what they were doing. This allowed him to have almost unique perspective on every missile and rocket system in the world.

Eventually when von Braun was allowed to travel, and make appearances, he got Fred to prepare and write his speeches because Fred had both the knowledge and the clearance.

Later in his life Fred was condemned by some people for working with the "Nazi", which was very sad. Fred was a liberal democrat. Kubrick initially considered approaching von Braun for 2001, but for obvious reasons chose not to. When Arthur suggested to Kubrick that he call Fred, that's what he did. The rest is history.

I introduced Adam to Fred. Adam was a keen 2001 enthusiast and had spent some time digging through Fred's enormous archive, which Fred had donated to the US Space & Rocket Center. He asked me to help him, so I did.

 I am currently writing Fred's biography which he asked me to do before he died.

Cheers
Rob

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When 2001 opened in 1968 the critical reviews were mixed. Kubrick had deliberately understated every single message in his story, often leaving his viewers and the critics baffled. But as time has passed the critics have honed their observational skills and gradually come to realize that 2001: A Space Odyssey is truly one of the greatest accomplishments in cinematic history. 

In the last four decades Kubrick's triumph has been dissected in books and theses from every conceivable perspective and until humanity actually encounters extraterrestrial intelligence, his movie will continue to draw attention to this most tantalizing subject. 

However, what is often overlooked in all of these critical studies is the almost flawless scientific facade constructed by Kubrick, Clarke, Ordway, Lange and the hundreds of other engineers and scientists who contributed to the production. 

Author and engineer Adam Johnson has spent years accumulating information, believed to have been long since destroyed, to create a detailed and unprecedented analysis of the technology envisioned in Kubrick's masterpiece. From British designers and model-makers to Soviet astronomers; from Canadian special effects wizards to German artists; from American spacecraft engineers and artificial intelligence scholars to French stylists; this is the Lost Science of 2001

Sleeve notes and email from Robert Godwin