People went into space earlier than they thought. Earlier than expected. They had a reason. Very strong. Traces of those who were in space before them.
Dr. Haywood Floyd has been following with interest the familiar, but changing view of the Earth. His elderly body pressed into the bedside of gravity in a third of the earth, a wide window allowed him to sunbathe almost like on an earthly beach, a pleasant breeze blew his face.
Not far from Station 6, there was a new voyage truck passing by. Floyd did not know whether he was going to the moon, Mars or even further away, but by perfect chance, he knew that this was being done all the time. For a little entertainment at Station 6 Hospital.
Floyd had fallen in love with the Earth from above over the years. He felt like he was standing above the world, and it brought him to a good state. Once upon a time, half a century ago, this was the only thing that gave him this peace of mind.
World politics fever, a half-way technology race - all the way up to the Catapult, as Pluto's alien device was called - and a bunch of family problems when the high-ranking official Floyd was then hadn't seen the family for months except on Skype.
And health problems. And the problems of international politics in space - no longer Soviet Russia, which became a supplier of space consumerism, and communist China, a supplier of consumerism, did not want to stay away.
However, it was already ridiculous to observe international politics on Earth. Put into operation solar space power plants in orbit became ideal regulators. If you want, you can get your light in the Arctic on a polar night. If you don't want to, the light may end or intensify a little bit... After one such incident in Africa, the jokers at the State Department didn't call the NEO "Big Space Bludgeon".
However, the world did not manage to use one baton. There were several batons, but there were a lot of gingerbreads as well.
Five years after Bowman's famous report, a whole fleet of robots flew to Pluto and led his ship Discovery Two.
And on the Earth successfully built a single, all-planetary Federation.
Floyd smiled, remembering - then it was he who came up with the idea "Earth is also just a device. You shine on it, and it emits spacecraft. With the photos from Discovery, where the whole planet looked like one tiny, almost imperceptible point with the Moon, it was a convincing argument for the unification under the leadership of great America. From peaceful and good arguments, of course.
However, almost then it stopped touching him. Health problems against the background of divorce successfully put him in hospital ... And when he was released, the doctors strongly recommended going into space. In weightlessness. On the newly built station 6.
The weightlessness and detachment from earthly problems made their magic work. Heywood Floyd was relieved. Returning to Earth he had no more resonances, and with the occasional problems he could quite cope with from space.
He was closely following the flight and reports of the Arcturus fleet - it was to this orange star that the interstellar Haron Catapult sent all the arriving ones, and it seemed quite obvious that this was the name given to the Discovery Two assault rifles - and he was looking forward to the return of the second Discovery after all these vehicles had disappeared in the outbreak of the Catapult.
Unfortunately, the hopes for a thermonuclear "in a couple of years" did not come true even in half a century. The second "Discovery" used nuclear and ion-plasma engines in the same way. And the third one. And even the latest long-range Universe spacecraft also used them. Multiple licked, perfected - and still do not allow you to get to the catapult faster than four and a half years. Let nuclear reactors-engines gave either powerful thrust or energy during a long flight, and ion-plasma-engineers gave very little thrust, but spent fuel very effectively and could, therefore, work almost constantly, achieving much higher speeds - but thermonuclear engines could give both, and much more effectively. But so far, we have not been able to do it.