On Apr 3, 1:26 am, 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.

That is the one thing that makes the most sense, the massive
interconnect of a
spinning outer hub and non rotating inner hub would be complicated and
expensive.
Rotating the space craft would be a logical and cheap way of doing the
docking.


The big question is of course what exactly is the purpose of the big
human presence on the Moon?
Common currency in modern science fiction prose from the late 30's to
the
present.... and people still dream of it ....think of the O'Neill
cylinder an even
grander concept.


Clavius Base is apparently huge, and one suspects the Russians have one
of equal size.
What makes that expenditure of time and treasure worth it to the two
countries?

That probably missed the mark, I don't think , even in 1964-1968
anyone had a firm
grasp on how expensive that would be.
Had Kubrick/Clarke extrapolated that it would have been economically
possible as a vast joint
international venture they would have been more on the mark!