poita said:

There are plenty of 2001 film prints available as a colour reference.

Unless we could get the vaulted master separations (B&W), we would be stuck with (any-kind-of)-fade color stock. From what I've read, only Criterion's 1989 "special edition" laserdisc was color corrected to director Stanley Kubrick's personal specifications, http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/00997/CC1160L/2001:-A-Space-Odyssey:-Special-Edition-%281968%29
which, by that release, should be the only other permanently non-fading record of the movie.

I would be interested to know whether that particular edition was released, intact, as one of the successive DVD releases.