To begin: The year 1968 was a turbulent one, and   2001   was released right in the middle of that chaos.  The Vietnam War intensified, the US military stunned by the ferocity of the Tet Offensive earlier in the year.  Fervent opposition to the war led to widespread and often violent demonstrations and police responses across the country.  The Civil Rights movement was painfully gaining momentum through the 1960’s; Martin Luther King would be assassinated just two days after the world premiere of   2001 .  The Space Race was still very real.  The Apollo fire that killed three American astronauts occurred only a little more than a year before the film’s release and the US was still trying to recover from that loss and still meet President John F. Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the Moon before the end of the decade.  No American had yet flown in an Apollo capsule, the giant Saturn 5 rocket had flown only once and without a crew (its second ...