On Apr 2, 11:26 pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
Al wrote:
Forty years ago today in D.C. .
Technology detected in the film still as good as gold.... but still
probably 50 to 100 years off in the future.

The instrument panels in the spacecraft are very similar to what we use
nowadays.
The space helmet visors that darken would also be quite doable nowadays,
although probably via a photocell rather than manual control as their
major means of operation.
I imagine you could dock a Pan-Am spaceliner to a space station the way
it's shown in the movie, but I think a de-spun hanger area makes more sense.
The big question is of course what exactly is the purpose of the big
human presence on the Moon?
Clavius Base is apparently huge, and one suspects the Russians have one
of equal size.
What makes that expendature of time and treasure worth it to the two
countries?
They seem to get along fairly well on the space station, so apparently
it doesn't have something to do with defense, even though both have
their orbital thermonuclear bomb satellites shown (unexplained, like
most of the movie) in the first scenes after the CPFM throws the bone
into the air.

Pat

But a despun hangar would require a lot of machinery to make it rotate
and despin...

What does not hold up in the movie is a lot of logo artwork, like the
Pan Am livery and the old AT&T Bell.

By the way the movie can be viewed online he

http://www.watch-movies.net/movies/2...space_odyssey/