Arthur C. Clarke was
born in England in 1917 and he registered King’s College, London where he got
First Class Honors in Physics’ and Mathematics. Not only as an author of fifty
books, but his invention of communications satellite, has brought him numerous
honors. The book is 332 pages long and it was published by Ballatine Books, USA
in 1989. The first edition was printed in 1982. The book is not stated as sequel
but as successor to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
This science-fiction
book is not easy to comprehend, but I really enjoy this book, since the Outer
Space is always mystery on my mind. A high qualified book which written by
brilliant author. The science-fiction book like 2010: Odyessy Two may reflect
human’s view about life and universe. If you’ve seen Gravity and Interstellar,
the two films will help you to enjoy this book and bring you to the high level
of imagination.
The story of the
outer space mission spacecraft Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov heads to planet Jupiter.
The USSR (Uni-Soviet/Russia) joint mission with U.S National Council was led by
Captain Tatiana Orlova and US provides three experts including Dr. Heywood
Floyd.
2010: Odyssey Two (1982), a Science Fiction by
Arthur C. Clarke: Summary
Heywood Floyd was
former Chairman of National Council on Astronautics, but now he worked for
University of Hawaii. Now he had a new job, new home, and new wife. With
despite the twenty-year age difference between them, Caroline understood his
moods and could wean him out of his occasional depressions. She had been a good
stepmother to his daughters, and had given him young son Christopher. Floyd had
found the contentment that was important as happiness, and longer lasting.
He was on the list on
the expedition to Jupiter abroad spacecraft Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov. American
spacecraft Discovery might be crash on Jupiter Mission. Four men had died, and
one disappeared, out there among the moons of Jupiter. Dr Sivasubramanian
Chandrasegarampillai, Professor of Computer Science at the University of
Illinois Urbana, never thought about the dead astronauts, but he grieved only
for his lost child, HAL 9000 (Hal). After all these years, and his endless
reviews of data radioed back from Discovery, he was not sure what had gone
wrong. The facts he needed were frozen in Hal’s circuit, out there between
Jupiter and Io. Nor could Hal’s twin, SAL 9000, back on Earth, when the
information was transmitted to Earth.
The U.S spacecraft
Discovery’s astronaut, David Bowman, launched himself in a space pod-leaving
Hal in full control the ship. Hal had switch off the life-support systems of
the three hibernating astronauts. Bowman was alone, as no man had ever been
before in the whole world of human history. Discovery finally arrived at
Jupiter, Bowman had gone out in a space pod to investigate, and had disappeared
leaving final message: “My God it’s full of stars.” Dr. Chandra refused to call
Hall’s behavior as a malfunction but, it’s an anomaly.
Discovery had left
Earth with three little space pods. One had been lost in accident that had
killed Frank Poole. Another carried by David Bowman to his final goal Big
Brother. A third was still in the ship garage, the Pod Bay (later Brailovsky
named it as Nina). Finally they found Discovery, Curnow felt at home now. He
had spent months working in Discovery. Brailovsky and Curnow had entered the
Pod Bay-Discovery’s space garage. The mysterious accident had killed Frank
Poole- missing Dave Bowman. The power system was okay, the main reactor stable,
batteries in good shape. All the ammonia had remained safely liquefied, and
there was enough to get the ship back to a safe orbit around Earth- at least
around Moon. There was no certain caused of the Discovery’ crash. They found a
purely personal message – unsent message to Bowman’s mother. Mrs. Bowman was in
a nursing home in Florida, and her mental condition was poor.
Spacecraft Cosmonaut
Alexei Leonov was led by Captain Tatiana (Tanya) Orlova. The Misssion
objectives are to proceed to Jovian system and rendezvous with U.S spacecraft
Discovery, to reactive Discovery, to relocate alien artifact encountered by
discovery, and to carry out a survey of Jupiter and its satellites. The Crews
were Dr Vasili Orlov as Navigation-Astronomy, Dr. Maxim Andrei Brailovsky as
Engineering-Structures (assistant engineer), Dr. Alexander Kovalev as
Engineering-Communication, Dr. Nikolai Ternovsky as Engineering-Control System,
Surgeon-Commander Katerina Rudenko as Medical-Life-Support, and Dr Irina
Yakunina as Medical-Nutrition. Three experts form U.S. National Council: Dr.
Heywood Floyd, Dr. Walter Curnow, and Dr. Chandra. Walter Curnow was the system
specialist and he was a large and husky man. Dr. Chandra was tiny, delicate,
and all his movements were swift and precise.
The image of Jupiter
with its ribbons of white cloud, its molted bands of salmon pink. Jupiter was
already larger than Moon in the sky of Earth, and giant inner satellites could
be seen moving around it. Both ships operational and first round test on Hal
almost finished. They trusted Hal to fly Discovery when they left to make their
final rendezvous with Big Brother. TMA2, it’s the best part of billion
kilometers from Tycho, Floyd named it Big Brother.
China spacecraft
Tsien was more than fifty kilometers away. In a few hours, Tsien would hit
Jupiter. Tsien was inaudible, and making a rendezvous with Europa. All the
scanty news of Chinese mission had to be relayed from Earth. The ship had
touched down. Meteorites might fall upon airless Europa, but never a flake a
snow. Europa was the biggest news in solar system. Europa’s canals were not an
illusion. They contained water, or at least ice. For the satellite was almost
entirely covered by ocean, averaging fifty kilometers deep. Because it’s far
from the sun, Europa’s surface temperature was extremely low- about a hundred
and fifty degrees below freezing. But there was the case a lot of heat
generated inside Europa by tidal forces- the great volcanoes on neighboring Io.
The ice was continually melting, breaking up, and forming cracks.
Tsien had landed
right beside white streaks that’d been christened the Grand Canal. A signal
came from Tsien and a sole survivor left the message said that there is a life
in Europa. Floyd was familiar with Professor Chang’s voice. Floyd vaguely
remembered Professor Chang Lee in a session in International Astronomical Union
Congress in Boston. Lee described unusual creature he saw. Things like a plant
scores of the big flowers in various stage unfolding. He announced the
destruction of spaceship Tsien. Ton of ice on the ship, Lee knew he would not
survive. Before died, he asked two requests; if the taxonomists classified the
creature, it’d named it after him. If the next ship came home – asking them to
take crew’s bone back to China.
When Floyd
communicated with Hal, a real-time message was on screen. It meat it was either
from Hal himself or someone abroad Leonov. Then he admitted he was David
Bowman. Floyd couldn’t accept that identification without proof. Then the shape
of human, only the head was fashioned with any care; the face; undoubtedly was
Commander David Bowman, but Floyd recognized the voice. The rest of the body
was a featureless blank, lacking all detail. There was no hint of genitals or
sexual characteristic. Dave Bowman had left his human heritage. He said to
Floyd that he had little time. He had been allowed to give Floyd warning that
he had only fifteen days. The Crew didn’t believe in Bowman’s ghost.
Young David Bowman
appeared on screen to his old girlfriend Betty Schultz. He was eighteen again,
and for a moment she wished she could see the entire body. For a decade, all
his autoerotic fantasies had centered upon Betty, he had never found another woman
to compare with her. His late brother Robert Bowman crushed on Betty. Betty had
never told Dave if he was a better lover than Bobby. Betty Fernandez was
though, intelligent, and now she was a housewife. She only remembered him as
death man but David admitted he was not ghost nor human but still part of him.
Jose Fernandez still maintained that his wife Betty had reported an encounter
with David Bowman. He asked personal questioned to Betty- about her son, but
she lied to him. In fact Carlos was Fernandez’s son. David Bowman also appeared
in monitor to his mother. Jesse Bowman saw his son as a young David who now
ageless had gained his control of obdurate matter. Jesse died only a few days
after a thing came to Earth.
Big Brother was
completely featureless. It was fact that from Earth, both Sun and Moon have the
same apparent diameter. Big Brother had been chosen for its cosmic balancing
act on the gravitational tight-rope between Jupiter and Io, a similar
phenomenon occurred. It was exactly the same shape as TMA1- but as it was more
than two kilometers, it was 718 times larger than its small siblings. There was
a mathematical mystery. Men had been arguing for years over that 1:4:9 ratio –
the squares of the first three integers. It could not be coincidence; now there
was another number to conjure with. Statistician and Mathematical physicist
were soon playing with their computer, trying to relate the ratio fundamental
constants of nature- the velocity of light, the proton/electron mass ratio, the
fine structure constant. Third pod later called Nina landed at the Big Brother.
Dave contacted Hal. He gave Hal instructions including to send the certain
message to Earth as many time as possible. The radio message beamed to Earth
before blast of radiation engulfed the ship: “All THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS-
EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE.”
There was life in
Europa- Bowman and his friends. Europa has a nice tropical climate when the ice
was melted. Hall only sent the message to Earth not to Leonov which was in fact,
it was much closer. Jupiter was mostly hydrogen. If a large percentage could be
converted into much denser material such as neutron and they dropped down to
the core. Nucleosynthesis – building up higher elements from pure hydrogen and
no more shortage of any metal – gold as a cheap aluminum. But when the core
became dense enough, Jupiter would collapse. The temperature would rise high
enough to start fusion. American Astronomer Carl Sagan once told that there
would be life on Jupiter.
Heywood Floyd reported
the crew preparing for return home. They were on the line between Io and
Jupiter where they made the rendezvous with the huge, mysteriously vanished
artifact they christened Big Brother. They planned by using the American
Discovery as a booster for Russian Leonov. The two ships would be joined
together, one mounted piggyback on the other. The crew was the way home and
Floyd was already in hibernation. Engineer- communication Sasha switched on the
long-range receiver and started to search frequency. There was no trace of a
signal. Discovery and Hal were gone.
*****
Balige, Sumatera, Indonesia
Sekapur Sirih
Karya fiksi ilmiah
tergolong langka bila dibandingkan genre lainnya. Buku ini terbit setelah buku
sukses sebelumnya 2001: A Space Odyssey yang juga sukses dalam bentuk film pada
tahun 1968. Penulis Arthur C. Clarke adalah penulis dan penemu kelahiran
Inggris bidang Fisika dan Matematika. Dalam buku ini berkisah
tentang pesawat angkasa Leonov milik Uni Soviet (Rusia) melakukan sejumlah ekspedisi di
Planet Jupiter sekaligus penyelamatan
pesawat luar angkasa Discovery milik Amerika yang hilang dan terjatuh di
planet Jupiter. Buku berisi 332 halaman disampaikan dalam bab pendek dan
sederhana. Memang adalah tidak mudah memahami karya ini, namun bila Anda telah
menonton film Gravity dan Interstellar maka akan menolong imajinasi pembaca
menikmati karya ini.
Terjemahan dalam
Bahasa Indonesia: 2010: Odyssey Two (1982), Karya Arthur C. Clarke: ringkasan
Pesawat ruang angkasa
Amerika bernama Discovery jatuh di
planet Jupiter. Empat Astronot dinyatakan mati dalam kecelakaan itu. Sebuah
ekspedisi misi gabungan dari Uni- Soviet dan Amerika dilakukan untuk misi
Jupiter sekaligus pencarian Discovery. Pesawat Leonov milik Uni-Soviet itu
dipimpin oleh Kapten Tatiana (Tanya) Orlova dan sejumlah kru Rusia dan termasuk
tiga ahli dari Amerika: Dr. Heywood Floyd, Dr. Walter Curnov, dan Dr. Chandra.
Dalam lintasan perjalanan pesawat Tsien milik China melaporkan dirinya telah
sampai di planet Europa, planet yang tidak terlalu jauh dari planet Jupiter dan
satelitnya Io.
Profesor Chang
melaporkan bahwa ada kehidupan di Europa, pesawatnya diselimuti oleh es tebal
semua krunya telah meninggal. Professor Chang dan Komander Floyd sebelumnya
telah pernah bertemu dalam sebuah pertemuan internasional di Boston. Flyod mengenali
suara lelaki itu, Chang banyak membeberkan isi planet itu dan memberi rekaman
kamera. Europa bersuhu sangat dingin, sebab memang memiliki jarak sangat jauh
dari matahari. Suhu sangat dingin, namun satelit di sebelahnya memiliki gunung
berapi sehingga membuat Europa terkadang mengalami masa tropis. Profesor Chang
Lee sadar bahwa dirinya juga akan segera mati. Dia berpesan agar namanya
diabadikan atas benda yang diduga tanaman kelak ketika ahli menemukannya. Bila
suatu saat pesawat ruang angksa mendarat
di Europa, agar membawa tulang-belulang mereka ke negeri China.
Kabar mengejutkan
datang dari bumi. Komander David Bowman dikabarkan berkomunikasi dengan mantan
kekasihnya Betty Schultz. Wanita cerdas yang kini menjadi ibu rumah tangga.
Kecantikan dan pesona wanita itu susah hilang dari ingatan David Bowman. Wanita
yang menjadi penyemangat hidupnya. Tentu saja, Betty sangat kaget melihat wajah
dan mendengar suara Dave di monitor. Wajah Dave ketika berumur delapan belas
tahun, masa ketika mereka bersama. Terlihat hanyalah muka Dave, walau Betty
berusaha melihat seluruh tubuh pemuda itu. Dia bertanya apakah putra Betty
bernama Carlos adalah putranya. Bagi Betty dan media Amerika, Bowman telah
mati. Carlos adalah putra suaminya Jose Fernandez, namun wanita itu sudah
membohongi hantu. Tidak hanya itu, Dave juga menampakkan dirinya dan berbicara
lewat monitor pada ibunya yang sudah tua dan kini di rawat di panti jompo.
Setelah melihat anaknya di layar, beberapa hari kemudian wanita itu pun
meninggal.
Kru Leonov akhirnya
berhasil menemukan Discovery di planet Jupiter. Tiga kru telah meninggal dan
David Bowman dinyatakan hilang dengan membawa satu pod (bagian dari pesawat
ruang angkasa yang saling dikaitkan dan bisa dilepas sebagai pesawat utuh
mandiri). Dr. Chandra berusaha memperbaiki komputer program ciptaannya bernama
Hal. Kemampuan intelijensinya tinggi dan memiliki sifat mirip manusia. Walter
Curnow dan asisten insinyur Brailovsky memeriksa dan memperbaiki Discovery.
Tidak diduga, rupanya Dave Bowman juga menghubungi Floyd dan tidak mudah
baginya percaya; perlu bukti. Sosok seperti manusia muncul di monitor, hanya
wajah tanpa badan, dan tanpa jenis kelamin, tapi jelas baginya bahwa suara dan
wajah itu adalah David Bowman. Para kru tidak percaya bahwa Dave masih hidup
dan juga tidak percaya ada hantu.
Setelah perbaikan
Discovery dan Hal pun siap untuk pulang. Hal dipercaya membawa pulang Discovery
ke bumi sementara kru tetap pada Leonov. Dalam perjalanan pulang, Dave berhasil
mengontak Hal dan memberinya sejumlah instruksi termasuk mengirimkan sebuah
pesan rekaman penting ke bumi. Insinyur Rusia tidak dapat mendeteksi sama
sekali jejak hal dan Discovery. Mereka telah lenyap.
Pesan pun masuk ke bumi
menyatakan: “bumi dan angkasanya boleh milikmu kecuali Europa. Jangan pernah
mendarat ke sana.” Kru Leonov pun terheran kenapa mereka tidak mendapat pesan
itu, padahal mereka dekat, kenapa pesan itu malah langsung ke bumi. Mereka
masih tetap menduga bahwa Bowman dan teman-temannya masih hidup walau tidak
seutuhnya manusia. Kemungkinan ada kehidupan alien. Dari hasil ekspedisi
mereka, didapati ada kehidupan di Jupiter dan Europa. Jupiter mengandung
hidrogen. Kru Leonov melaporkan diri kepulangan mereka dan Floyd dan beberapa
kru memasuki kapsul hibernasi (hibernation) masing-masing.
******
Balige, Sumatera
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