OF

28 The Making of Kubrick's 2001
initial stage, these planets, for instance, Mars, could be more
rich in water, and life could have emerged there along the same
lines as on the Earth, and, having once emerged, it could develop
and adjust to those severe, I would say unbearable for
human beings, conditions existing on these celestial objects.
We possess, so to say, a single copy of the Book of Life, that of
terrestrial life, while the knowledge of other forms of life could
tell us about our past and, what's more, it could supply us with
many clues as to our future. The discovery of new forms of life
superior to ours would immensely enrich our culture and expedite
our development.
Thus, human venture into space, direct perception of the solar
system and, in particular, of Earth-type planets will add much
to our perception of life and its development.
I doubt if we can seriously talk of any visits to the Earth from
outer space that took place in the past. It is still the sphere of
science fiction more than that of science. Of course, science
fiction is fine in its own right; however, we should in all honesty
say that the boundaries of our knowledge are but too far from
the point where we could seriously discuss this problem without
having any evidence whatsoever of communications of this
nature.
Doubtless, a great number of complex and highly developed
forms of the evolution of matter are to be found in the limitless
expanse of the universe. But it is in no way imperative that we
call these forms "life" or consider them such, as they differ in
principle from our terrestrial form of life. It is my opinion that
should we come across such phenomena in the process of our
increasing space effort, we can work out some name other than
"life" for them.
We can hardly expect to find anywhere in space human beings
or living organisms morphologically similar to those of our
terrestrial world. I presume the highly organized forms that
may be found elsewhere in the universe are completely different
in their appearance, which does not, however, rule out the
possibility of finding intelligent life of a new type, other than
our terrestrial life. Taking into consideration a great number of
planetary systems within our galaxy alone, there exists a strong
probability of finding one or several planets similar to ours.
However, the development of life is such a complex process
that, even in this case, full coincidence of the forms of life on
these duplicated planets with our terrestrial form of life is hardly