“…After various false starts and twelve-hour talkathons, by early May 1964 Stanley agreed that “The Sentinel” would provide good story material. But our first concept, and it is hard now for me to focus on such an idea, though it would have been perfectly viable — involved working up to the discovery of an extraterrestrial artifact as the climax, not the beginning, of the story. Before that, we would have a series of incidents or adventures devoted to the exploration of the Moon and Planets. For this Mark I version, our private title (never of course intended for public use) was “How the Solar System Was Won.”
The Kubrick site has a brilliant excerpt from [Arthur Clarke’s 2001 Diary](http://www.visual- memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0073.html), which makes for entertaining reading. It’s a nice little insight into the production of 2001, and into the creative process in general.