Ralph Halvorsen

Ralph Halvorsen was a secondary character featured in the Space Odyssey mythos as envisioned by author Arthur C. Clarke. Played by actor Robert Beatty, he first appeared in the 1968 Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The character also appeared in Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey novel, which was published to coincide with the release of the film.

Biography
Ralph Halvorsen was the administrator of the Southern Province of Earth's moon and worked alongside notable scientists such as Bill Michaels and Heywood R. Floyd. He was stationed at Clavius Base in the Clavius Crater. Ralph's young daughter, Diana Halvorsen, was born at Clavius in 1996, making her one of the first Earthlings born off-planet. In the year 2000, Halvorsen headed up a research project analyzing a bizarre, extraterrestrial artifact found in Tycho Crater. Due to the magnetic resonance given off by the Monolith, the slab of stone was codified TMA-1 (Tycho Magnetic Anomaly number one).