This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Keir Dullea in a scene from the 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Space exploration was then an exciting possibility, but one far from realization. Stanley Kubrick and science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, convinced the moon was only the start, began to toil on a script together. It would be five years before astronauts landed on the moon, on July 20, 1969. Kubrick took flight sooner.2001: A Space Odysseyopened in theaters April 3, 1968. (Warner Bros. via AP)