2001: A Space Odyssey (novel) becomes an immortal 'Star Child' that can live and travel in space. The Star Child then returns to Earth, where he detonates an orbiting nuclear warhead. This is not discussed again until the sequel to the book, "". "2001: A Space Odyssey" explores technological advancement: its promise and its danger. The HAL 9000 computer puts forward the troubles that can crop up when man builds machines, the inner workings of which he does not fully comprehend and therefore cannot fully control. The book explores the perils related to the atomic age. In this novel, the Cold War is apparently still
Interpretations of 2001: A Space Odyssey experts, such as the structure on the first satellite that Pietrobon refers to as a "conning tower", match the original concept sketch drawn for the nuclear bomb platform. Modelers label them in diverse ways. On the one hand, the "2001" exhibit (given in that year) at the Tech Museum in San Jose and now online (for a subscription) referred merely to "satellites", while a special modelling exhibition at the exhibition hall at Porte de Versailles in Paris also held in 2001 (called "2001 l'odyssée des maquettes (2001: A Modeler's Odyssey)") overtly described their reconstructions of the first satellite as the