Discuss 2001: A Space Odyssey
Discuss → Movies → 2001: A Space Odyssey → General
The Rocket Science
posted by katch22STAFFMOD on October 12, 2021 at 8:37 PM
The film has always been considered "authentic" in terms of representing space flight. But to me, there's seems to be a major flaw. The spaceship Discovery One is TRAVELLING to Jupiter (if they had arrived, then the rest of the crew would have been awoken from suspended animation). I don't believe this type of spaceship would stop in space to conduct repairs by an EVA, and then start up moving again toward Jupiter (I would guess the fuel consumption of a mid-space "take-off" would be huge, but I'm no rocket scientist, and perhaps in zero-gravity it would be essentially nothing). Obviously, Discovery One is stationary when they do the EVAs. So, explain the rocket science to me: does Discovery One stop and start in space?
Reply by Fergoose
on October 13, 2021 at 3:57 PM
I can't remember the specifics from the film or book in terms of propulsion, but they do EVAs on the International Space Station all the time and it reportedly moves at a steady 7.66 kilometres per second!
Reply by rooprect
on October 18, 2021 at 1:53 PM
I agree with Ferg, I don’t think the discovery was stationary (unless I missed something?). Yes it definitely looks stationary during EVA, especially in that chilling scene where Bowman & Hal are at a standoff (“Open the pod bay doors, Hal”), but the interesting thing about space is that everything looks stationary unless there’s a larger non stationary object very close by. We’ve been spoiled by decades of Hollywood starfields zooming past the window to denote motion.
Fun fact: in the 1927 silent film Wings, they filmed tons of aerial dogfight footage but ended up scrapping it all because the planes looked like they were just sitting there dead in the sky. It’s because it was a clear day, no clouds, so the camera didn’t capture any real sense of speed. They reshot everything on a cloudy day and it was a masterpiece.