Like any great movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey bears repeated viewing because it is complex enough to contain meanings that are not readily apparent.

After first being dazzled by the special effects, most people are usually left with the problem of the plot, which is quite a bit more difficult to follow. A Star Wars-type “Good versus Evil” movie it’s not.

For instance, it is no accident the insane computer, HAL, is more engaging and knowledgeable than any human character in the movie. That’s the point—mankind has created a technology that is so powerful it will render humans useless, unless they change.

And so, with apologies to Darwin, the 1969 movie shows how the alien monolith, deus ex machina, guides human evolution to overcome first the natural world and then the world of technology. Pretty high-falutin‘ stuff, but that’s basically what the movie is about.

Unfortunately, the movie has taken on a new and unintentional meaning lately—it is a sad reminder of the failure of America’s space program.

Twenty two years ago, the movie was criticized for slowness, lack of characterization and incomprehensibility. But the technological advances that were dreamed up for the year 2001 were taken for granted by an audience mesmerized by the recent moon landing.

Yet today, these educated guesses are now the most glaring, if unintentional, flaw in the film.

It would be one thing if the movie has dated badly because scientific advances are even more startling than what was predicted. Unfortunately, this country, has failed to fulfill what were once reasonable expectations.

Consider what the 1969 movie thought was going to be around in 2001—a moon base, an orbiting space station, routine space flights, a space-built spaceship and the ability to fly a manned vehicle to Jupiter. In fact, HAL the computer was given a “birthdate” of 1992.

In 1969, these wonders were reasonable enough to expect in another 32 years. In 1991, they are an embarrassing reminder of how far we haven’t come.

The space program today commands a fraction of the attention it used to in the 60s and its budget has suffered accordingly. Today, almost all NASA has going for it are occasional military endeavors and a shuttle program that only now is recovering from the Challenger disaster.

The space program has become an exercise in operational techniques—the itch to explore unknown regions is almost dead and gone.

There are two reasons this is especially lamentable. First, the technology does exist to make interplanetary flight possible, only money and commitment stand in the way.

The other is that the United States still seems to be the leader in space, only that fact is not a sign of strength but a sad comment on the inability of other countries to catch up.

The desire to explore the unknown is what often typifies the people of the leading nations of any epoch, be they Greece, Spain, Britain or our own country. It would be sad and premature if Americans, in failing to support the dreams of even twenty years ago, have shown they have lost their nerve.