Not too late for more Shuttle flights

On 3/13/2010 4:16 PM, David Spain wrote:
Sorry, mixing too much together. Yes to your first question. No to the ISS
module and yes to the free flyer. But attaching a spinning centrifuge to the
ISS of any sizeable mass scares the hell out of me! Is the plan to keep it
spinning all the time?

No, it would be spun up and down to change the biological samples that
were being tested; spin-up could take anywhere from a minute to an hour,
and g range was .01 to 2.0.
The spinning rotor weighed 1,875 kg, so you can see why they were
concerned about it getting a little out of balance. How exactly the
Station's gyrodynes were supposed to overcome that sort of gyroscopic
force is a good question.
As to why it needed to go to 2g is another good one, as anything above
1g could be done on the Earth's surface a hell of a lot easier than in
space.


If you are going to do it for crew gravity, then spinning up the whole works
is probably the way to go. But a cylindrical shape is probably going to be
of too small of diameter to get rid of the vertigo effects, and the old
classic donut shape is a better choice. IIRC, the diameter has to be around
400' before the different rotation rates between the feet and the head
aren't noticeable.

At what g along the rim? Can you shrink it if you spin it slower and go for
less g? Say 1/6g?

I think that was for 1g.
I assume reducing the g force would help things as far as diameter goes,
but then you could be back into muscle/bone mass loss territory.
Which is why we need something like the ISS centrifuge to figure out
what happens along the whole reduced g curve in this regard.
When I designed this thing:
http://www.starshipmodeler.com/gallery/pf_disc.htm
I got around the rotation diameter problem by having the whole ship spin
around its center of mass where the de-spun ion engines and
sensor/antenna arrays are, counterbalancing the crew quarters at the
front with the power reactors and nuclear engines at the rear.
This made the effective diameter of rotation around 1,000 feet, while at
the same time getting the crew far away from the reactors for radiation
protection.

Pat

On 3/13/2010 5:13 PM, John Doe wrote:
Pat Flannery wrote:

The thing about both B5 and Island Three is that they are incredibly
wasteful of internal volume due to the vast open space above the "ground".

There may be a lot of unused volume, but is it really wasted ? Wouldn't
such a colomy require a fair amount of spare atmosphere ?


The amount of air used for a given population remains the same no matter
what the size of the thing they are housed in.
You could probably make a argument regarding the amount of acreage
required for plants to replenish the oxygen and produce food, but those
could also be grown in hydroponic decks as well as in the open.
In fact, the B5 design doesn't have clouds or rain in it, so all the
plants in the garden must get their water via some sort of "underground"
plumbing.


And remember that while a relatively small portion had empty space in
the core, the ends had substandtial structures used for spacecraft
parking. So not all of the core was unused.


Island Three had the side windows to let sunlight in for illumination
and to let the plants grow; B5 didn't have those, and although its
always shown as illuminated inside, and having a "day" and "night",
that's apparently done via lamps on the core shuttle:
http://darthmojo.files.wordpress.com...6/b5core02.jpg
(This is fun BTW:
http://darthmojo.wordpress.com/2008/...5-flashback-2/ )
The big interior space is no doubt good from psychological point of view
for its inhabitants, but it means the whole thing is larger for the same
number of inhabitants than it would need to be.
In reality something along these lines of B5 might more closely resemble
the Death Star internally, although with the decks arranged in layers
for centrifugal gravity generation:
http://www.stardestroyer.net/tlc/Power/dsgun3.jpg
The Island Three approach does give optimized gravity on its interior
surface for humans, but that misses some of the advantages (and fun) of
having lower gravity sections nearer the center of rotation, where heavy
cargo can be moved around with greater ease, and you can play sports
while jumping high into the air or fly around on artificial wings
strapped to your arms. Soccer in low gravity would really be something
to see, as would dancing.


And having some "wide open spaces" would probably do a lot of good for
mental health of permanent human inhabitants. One might support living
in a collection of tin cans with one window for 6 months, but for
permanent habitation, the requirements would likely be different.


That's no doubt true. One gets the feeling that the Skylab astronauts
enjoyed their spacious interior far more than the Salyut crews did,
although when I got into a Salyut-6 mock-up in Moscow, it seemed less
crowded internally than I was expecting. Still no running around space
though.
For wide-open spaces, the concept of converting Shuttle ETs into space
station modules would have really been something:
http://www.friends-partners.org/part...t/stsation.htm

Pat

Pat Flannery writes:
What's odd about the one on the Discovery is that it's not located where you
think it would be in the control sphere; you would expect it to go around
the equator of the sphere dividing it into front and back halves for maximum
diameter on the centrifuge, but it's aft of center.

This is a quirk that I think helps authenticate the movie. Of course you'd
start out with a paper design that places it squarely on the equator only to
discover later you have to move it to make way for lab space, or other gear
that for one reason or another has to be close to the command module. So you
back the centrifuge back towards aft to make room, making it slightly smaller
in the process. Sounds like the typical design trade-off to me...

The rotating set in the movie was indeed 40' in diameter. It also points
out what I always thought was the big problem with 2001; it's fascinating to
look at the thing going around, but it doesn't add one whit to the storyline
(what little there is of it) while being very hard and expensive to produce
(as in $750,000 dollars back when that was real money) The whole movie is
like this spectacular gift box with sparkly wrapping paper and glittering
bows and ribbons all over it...and nothing much inside, a triumph of
packaging over content.

You mean like Avatar and Waterworld?

Essentially contributing to the visuals of a movie is major. Sometimes even
more so than the plotline when it comes to an audience draw. The story of the
Wizard of Oz was well known when the definitive movie came along in the
30's. But the big draw wasn't just the story; it was the music, the sets, the
actors and the careful presentation of color framed around what starts and
ends as a B&W movie.

For 2001, it seems that the overriding quality Kubrick was going for was
disorientation. I think he was striving to provide this quirky environment
that you could never quite get confortable with, a constant reminder of where
you were during the movie. There was more alienation going in that movie that
just that provided by the esoteric monolith. A movie very much of its time,
the late 60s...

Dave

On 3/14/2010 9:14 AM, David Spain wrote:

Pat writes:
What's odd about the one on the Discovery is that it's not located where you
think it would be in the control sphere; you would expect it to go around
the equator of the sphere dividing it into front and back halves for maximum
diameter on the centrifuge, but it's aft of center.

This is a quirk that I think helps authenticate the movie. Of course you'd
start out with a paper design that places it squarely on the equator only to
discover later you have to move it to make way for lab space, or other gear
that for one reason or another has to be close to the command module. So you
back the centrifuge back towards aft to make room, making it slightly smaller
in the process. Sounds like the typical design trade-off to me...


What's odd about Discovery is that it's perfectly designed to generate
artificial gravity by spinning the whole ship around the center section
where the communication system is (as is shown in 2010) but it doesn't
do that. The reason Discovery looks the way it does in the 2001 isn't
about science, it's to resemble the skull and spinal column of an animal
to connect it with the bones the apes were using as weapons in the
movie's beginning, as well as a sperm cell (with the crew as the genetic
material in its head) that's going to knock up the funny light show at
the end and create the Star Child floating around in the womb of space.
Although this all sounds unhinged in retrospect, this is just the sort
of stuff that came out of the LSD-soaked late 1960's.
As the studio knew that when they marketed the movie with posters like
this: http://ckmac.com/r2600-3699/r2608b.jpg
After they realized what an oddball thing they had just spent so much
money on and were desperately trying to recoup their losses any way they
could.
I never did it, but at the time it was considered way cool to see the
movie while three sheets to the wind on acid.
"Can't understand it? Man, it's just too deep for squares like you. Eat
this little piece of blotter paper and soon all will be clear.
Dig it, man! Now the emperor has hip new glowing clothes!"


The rotating set in the movie was indeed 40' in diameter. It also points
out what I always thought was the big problem with 2001; it's fascinating to
look at the thing going around, but it doesn't add one whit to the storyline
(what little there is of it) while being very hard and expensive to produce
(as in $750,000 dollars back when that was real money) The whole movie is
like this spectacular gift box with sparkly wrapping paper and glittering
bows and ribbons all over it...and nothing much inside, a triumph of
packaging over content.

You mean like Avatar and Waterworld?


Haven't seen either of those, but those Star Wars prequels certainly
come to mind.
I wonder if watching them on acid would make them better?*
Probably not, but dipping the film emulsion _into_ acid might vastly
improve them.



Essentially contributing to the visuals of a movie is major. Sometimes even
more so than the plotline when it comes to an audience draw.


Sure didn't work for 2001; the audience stayed away in droves after it
had been out for a week or so, helped by the critical reviews that
basically said: "What...the ****...was that?".
(other critics of course went with the "It's totally incomprehensible,
so it _must_ be great, and I'm not going to admit that I couldn't
understand it and be the subject of scorn by my peers" approach, which
was very big in the modern art and modern music criticism of the time also.)


The story of the
Wizard of Oz was well known when the definitive movie came along in the
30's. But the big draw wasn't just the story; it was the music, the sets, the
actors and the careful presentation of color framed around what starts and
ends as a B&W movie.


Yeah, but the Wizard Of Oz has a good storyline, and flying monkeys to
boot (though even it wasn't an instant classic when it was first
released, as Hitler made the Wicked Witch look pretty mundane by
comparison, although one can certainly picture Goering ordering flying
monkeys around.)
That M-Factor was vital to its success as in any good sci-fi or fantasy
movie, and I would have been much more entertained if 2001 had just
stayed with the "Smart Killer Monkeys" concept through the whole movie
like Planet Of The Apes from the same year did.
If you wanted to make that fit in better with the timbre of the times,
the monkeys could be seen as the downtrodden colonial populations of the
world and the Monolith as Marxist-Leninism, liberating them through
creative violence against the sell-out lackeys of the capitalist system
among them.
HAL would be the CIA in this version, talking calmly while killing
everything in sight, and Moonwatcher Che Guevara.
But I digress.


For 2001, it seems that the overriding quality Kubrick was going for was
disorientation.


Worked for me; I saw that movie for the first time and didn't know what
the hell going on, and that was after reading the book.


I think he was striving to provide this quirky environment
that you could never quite get confortable with, a constant reminder of where
you were during the movie.


Staring at my watch a lot, and trying to figure out how to apologize to
my parents for suggesting we see this?


There was more alienation going in that movie that
just that provided by the esoteric monolith. A movie very much of its time,
the late 60s...


Speaking of alienation, wouldn't it have been fun if the Monoliths had
stuck a little something funny in Bowman's food when he was hanging out
in that bedroom at the end, and later when the Star Child was floating
in space near Earth, it suddenly screamed and convulsed as something
horrifying tore itself out of its stomach and attacked the planet?
The audience wouldn't have seen that one coming, would they?
And it's the perfect set-up for the sequel, "2002-The Monolith
Monsters". ;-)

* "Man that little green guy is so completely Zen! Look, he's jumping
all over the place! Jump Zen Yoda, jump! Okay, who let the Dewback
Lizard crawl under my seat? I can feel it's down there, panting in the
darkness...****...THAT THING HAS FOUR ARMS AND ASTHMA! A ROBOT WITH
ASTHMA! That is SUCH a bad trip! Are there going to be any Ewoks in
this? I've heard you can understand what they say if you play it
backwards in your head. Look, it's Saruman! SARUMAN IS IN THIS! I should
have recognized his foul stench when we entered the theater!
My feet are turning all wet and soft...Dewback spit no doubt, but I
can't move or the Womp Rats will detect my fear and that will be the end
of me...I didn't know you were a Wookie. Just a beard? Let's see if it's
on your back also; that would be a sure sign that you're a Wookie. We
must shave your back or you will be detected and killed by Saruman."

Pat

Pat Flannery writes:
On 3/14/2010 9:14 AM, David Spain wrote:

Essentially contributing to the visuals of a movie is major. Sometimes even
more so than the plotline when it comes to an audience draw.


Sure didn't work for 2001; the audience stayed away in droves after it had
been out for a week or so, helped by the critical reviews that basically
said: "What...the ****...was that?". (other critics of course went with the
"It's totally incomprehensible, so it _must_ be great, and I'm not going to
admit that I couldn't understand it and be the subject of scorn by my peers"
approach, which was very big in the modern art and modern music criticism of
the time also.)


Well maybe. 2001 certainly was the kind of movie you'd probably only go to see
once, unlike Star Wars episode IV.

For 2001, it seems that the overriding quality Kubrick was going for was
disorientation.


Worked for me; I saw that movie for the first time and didn't know what the
hell going on, and that was after reading the book.


Well I read the book before seeing the movie and didn't have that problem.
But my mom and sister, who went with me at the time, hadn't and they
*definitely* had trouble with this movie.


I think he was striving to provide this quirky environment that you could
never quite get comfortable with, a constant reminder of where you were
during the movie.


Staring at my watch a lot, and trying to figure out how to apologize to my
parents for suggesting we see this?


:-D

Maybe I should have been more explicit. This was (placing reverb control to
11) "Kubrick In Space". All the quirky camera angles, people walking upside
down, the strangely disorienting experience of Poole running in the
centrifuge. This was not Ozzie and Harriet at home on the sofa. In fact, in
retrospect, the spacecraft interiors (at least the centrifuge) were an
asthetic nightmare and deliberately chosen to be so. Think how easily it would
have been to cozy it up with overhead screening so as to block the upcurve
view and reduce the disorientation of watching the people walking around
upside down directly overhead.


There was more alienation going in that movie that just that provided by
the esoteric monolith. A movie very much of its time, the late 60s...

Workaholic Dad jaunting off to the moon, instead of being home for his
daughter's birthday.

Lying to close professional colleages about a 'space plague'. Not to mention
what such a callous cover story would do to Clavius family members back on
Earth, but hey, we already know how important the family scores in this movie.

Frank Poole's birthday party telethon. That whole scene was about space
isolation, alienation from family, topped off with a pre-programmed best
wishes from HAL. Frank's cold reaction to HAL in that scene actually made me
feel sorry for HAL. The whole scene was as heartwarming as an audit notice
from the IRS.

Orders to HAL to keep secret the mission's true purpose and to deny knowledge
about it if directly asked even to his own crewmates. (Would have been a great
scene what would have happened when HAL was doing the crew psyche profile if
Bowman had just come straight out and asked HAL WTF? But Bowman choses instead
to cut to the chase and by exposing HAL's subterfuge, triggers the start of
the psychosis with the antenna failure).

The crew plotting to 'kill' HAL and HAL secretly watching in turn.

Aliens so esoteric there's no discerning their intentions.

An incomprehensible final third of the movie that ends with a Star-Child(tm)
that destroys the Earth in the end? Or what? ? Alienating the audience to the
point of wanting a refund on their ticket?

If the aliens and computers weren't out to get you, "the man" certainly
was....

;-)

Dave

On 3/14/2010 10:07 PM, David Spain wrote:

Well maybe. 2001 certainly was the kind of movie you'd probably only go to see
once, unlike Star Wars episode IV.

I saw that what? 17 times? at the theater.
I think I saw 2001 twice at the theater - once when it came out, once
when it was re-released, thinking it might be better second time around
after having read so much about it...it wasn't...it was still way
bloated in length for the story it had to tell. When a computer and some
monkeys are far more interesting characters than the people in the
picture, you've got a problem.
Ever realize that you know absolutely nothing about what Poole and
Bowman's personalities at the end of the movie? They might as well have
been mannequins with tape recorders inside of them for all they added to
the film.


For 2001, it seems that the overriding quality Kubrick was going for was
disorientation.


Worked for me; I saw that movie for the first time and didn't know what the
hell going on, and that was after reading the book.


Well I read the book before seeing the movie and didn't have that problem.


About the time all the weird lights started, I turned off and tuned out.


But my mom and sister, who went with me at the time, hadn't and they
*definitely* had trouble with this movie.


I think he was striving to provide this quirky environment that you could
never quite get comfortable with, a constant reminder of where you were
during the movie.


Staring at my watch a lot, and trying to figure out how to apologize to my
parents for suggesting we see this?


:-D

Maybe I should have been more explicit. This was (placing reverb control to
11) "Kubrick In Space". All the quirky camera angles, people walking upside
down, the strangely disorienting experience of Poole running in the
centrifuge. This was not Ozzie and Harriet at home on the sofa. In fact, in
retrospect, the spacecraft interiors (at least the centrifuge) were an
asthetic nightmare and deliberately chosen to be so. Think how easily it would
have been to cozy it up with overhead screening so as to block the upcurve
view and reduce the disorientation of watching the people walking around
upside down directly overhead.


Really, I doubt that would bother me at all; in fact it might be fun to
never know where someone might be or in what orientation.
Having HAL staring at me all day would get creepy real fast though.
One thing you don't see in the movie is if Poole and Bowman had some
sort of small private quarters onboard Discovery, or if they just slept
in the centrifuge; I don't remember seeing any beds in there other than
the three chambers for the crew in hibernation.
In the Salyut 6 mock-up in Moscow, the two-man crew slept in two
sleeping bags strapped to the wall, although Mir did give the crew tiny
independent rooms. Cosmonauts aboard Mir stated it was important for
each module to have a "ceiling" and "floor" aspect to it that you could
align yourself with to avoid disorientation, but going from one module
to another one that had a different orientation was always disconcerting
till you could make the mental adjustment to the new orientation.
One reason that centrifuge set cost so much might have been who they
chose to build it; the British aerospace firm of Vickers Armstrong.
I imagine a spaceship set built by Lockheed's Skunk Works might be
fairly pricey also.


There was more alienation going in that movie that just that provided by
the esoteric monolith. A movie very much of its time, the late 60s...

Workaholic Dad jaunting off to the moon, instead of being home for his
daughter's birthday.

Lying to close professional colleages about a 'space plague'. Not to mention
what such a callous cover story would do to Clavius family members back on
Earth, but hey, we already know how important the family scores in this movie.


Remember though, that rumor was leaked to the Russians; we don't know if
anything about funny going-ons at Clavius made the news Earthside.


Frank Poole's birthday party telethon. That whole scene was about space
isolation, alienation from family, topped off with a pre-programmed best
wishes from HAL. Frank's cold reaction to HAL in that scene actually made me
feel sorry for HAL. The whole scene was as heartwarming as an audit notice
from the IRS.


One gets the feeling that Frank and his family were none-too-close.
I imagine he spends a lot of time in space, and a close family
relationship is about as impossible as it was for sailors in the age of
sail, when you could be gone for years at a time.
Haywood Floyd's daughter (who wants the pet Bush Baby) was played by
Kubrick's five-year-old daughter Vivian BTW.


Orders to HAL to keep secret the mission's true purpose and to deny knowledge
about it if directly asked even to his own crewmates. (Would have been a great
scene what would have happened when HAL was doing the crew psyche profile if
Bowman had just come straight out and asked HAL WTF? But Bowman choses instead
to cut to the chase and by exposing HAL's subterfuge, triggers the start of
the psychosis with the antenna failure).

I think that Bowman was treating HAL the way he would a person during a
conversation, and didn't realize that HAL had been given Abbie Normal's
brain. :-)


The crew plotting to 'kill' HAL and HAL secretly watching in turn.

Aliens so esoteric there's no discerning their intentions.


Or shape. At one point during the production you were going to see them,
described as "people in rubber monster suits", but that got dropped,
probably to make the movie more intentionally obscure yet.


An incomprehensible final third of the movie that ends with a Star-Child(tm)
that destroys the Earth in the end? Or what? ? Alienating the audience to the
point of wanting a refund on their ticket?


In the book the Flying Fetus Monster destroys those nuclear warhead
carriers in Earth orbit that we saw before the space station scene...
and which of course were nowhere identified as nuclear warhead
carriers...to make things intentionally more obscure yet.


If the aliens and computers weren't out to get you, "the man" certainly
was....

How about this: The Star Child is wearing a diaper, reaches down and
takes one of the safety pins out of it, and pokes the Earth...which then
flies off like a deflating balloon.
Then Haywood wakes up, and we realize the whole movie was a strange
dream he had while he was on the Pan-Am Space Clipper heading for the
Space Station.
Audience wouldn't see that one coming, would they?
They'd be ready to kill at that point. ;-)

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:

after having read so much about it...it wasn't...it was still way
bloated in length for the story it had to tell.

If the monkey opening had been shortened to 1 or 2 minutes, the movie
would have been far better.

You need to realise that this wasn't about a story or actors. It was
about special effects and a audio-visual entertainment. Reading up on
imdb, you learn about how they did the trick of the pen floating in the
shuttle to the space station. Considering the then state of the art for
computers, that movie was a true masterpiece.

Today, we take many of the tricks for granted. But back then, they were
brilliant.

2001 was more like a symphony being played by an orchestra than a movie
with a story line. And it also has interesting product placement from
companies that no longer exist as they did back then (Bell System, Pan
Am etc).

BTW, found out that HAL was canadian, and he recorded his lines at home
while relaxing (they wanted to make sure the voice was as relaxed and
stress free as possible).

On 3/15/2010 1:48 PM, John Doe wrote:
Pat Flannery wrote:

after having read so much about it...it wasn't...it was still way
bloated in length for the story it had to tell.

If the monkey opening had been shortened to 1 or 2 minutes, the movie
would have been far better.

You need to realise that this wasn't about a story or actors. It was
about special effects and a audio-visual entertainment. Reading up on
imdb, you learn about how they did the trick of the pen floating in the
shuttle to the space station. Considering the then state of the art for
computers, that movie was a true masterpiece.

Today, we take many of the tricks for granted. But back then, they were
brilliant.

I think that the story comes first, and the special effects are there
to support the story, not the other way around.
2001 certainly looked great, but there was a very confusing and mediocre
story that went along with all those special effects; at least with the
original Star Wars trilogy, you got a Golden Age science fiction story
to go with all the cool special effects (you also got Ewoks, but nothing
is perfect, and they were a very good warning about what the prequels
were going to be like). Decent special effects in science fiction films
didn't start with "2001"; The effects in Disney's "20,000 Leagues Under
The Sea" from 1954 are still damned impressive to see, and the story
works well also.
A more recent example of ground-breaking special effects combined with a
good story would be "Jurassic Park", which had the first really
convincing dinosaurs ever put on film.
Science fiction movies certainly have gone down the "special effects are
everything" road since Star Wars, and only now are starting to recover
from that trend and putting special effects back in their proper
supporting roll.
But of course now we have 3D so it's all going to start over again.
Like in "Fahrenheit 451" we are about to get that third video wall, and
they are already figuring out ways for the audience to interact with the
movie.
Someone tries to warn people about what the future could bring, and not
only do they ignore the warning, they use it as an instruction book on
how to bring that thing about...a rewatching of the 1976 movie "Network"
will bring that home like nothing else. When that was released, it was
considered a black comedy; now it's mainstream TV, with Glenn Beck as
our very own Howard Beale.


2001 was more like a symphony being played by an orchestra than a movie
with a story line. And it also has interesting product placement from
companies that no longer exist as they did back then (Bell System, Pan
Am etc).


Good product placement should be a warning about what the movie is going
to be like (a giant commercial), as it's probably most well known from
the late and forgettable James Bond films; this is the movie not as art,
but purely as product. Its sole purpose is to make as much money as
possible versus what it cost to produce*, and it's just a throwaway
means to that end, like Barnum's Fiji Mermaid was. The audience is also
throwaway, and must quickly move on to see the Egress once having been
separated from their dollars. ;-)
Here's one company (still existing) that didn't make it into 2001:
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2010/...door-boosters/
This is the name that could have been stuck on the communications system
on Discovery. ;-)
It would have been fun to have been a fly on the wall while 2001 was
being filmed, as I get the feeling the Kubrick and Clarke knew that they
had a real mess on their hands, and were desperately trying to figure
out some way to do a salvage operation on it in best "SOB" tradition.
For a real blast from the past, here's the original 2001 script, where
people were actually going to talk, and a narrator would tell you what's
going on: http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/2001.html
Reading this, the whole movie sounds like a "Dr. Strangelove" style comedy:

"C27
CENTRIFUGE

WE SEE BOWMAN AND
POOLE GO TO A CUPBOARD
LABELED IN PAPER TAPE,
"RANDOM DECISION
MAKER."

THEY REMOVED A SILVER
DOLLAR IN A PROTECTIVE
CASE.

POOLE FLIPS THE COIN.
BOWMAN CALLS "HEAD."

IT IS TAILS. POOLE
WINS.

POOLE LOOKS PLEASED."

WTF?


BTW, found out that HAL was canadian, and he recorded his lines at home
while relaxing (they wanted to make sure the voice was as relaxed and
stress free as possible).


They were very pleased that they could get him back for "2010".

*Although that concept does bring up one of my favorite quotes:
"Movie critics telling producers how to make movies is like virgins
telling whores how to ****."


Pat

Pat Flannery writes:

On 3/16/2010 7:08 PM, David Spain wrote:
Pat writes:
quarters onboard Discovery, or if they just slept in the centrifuge; I don't
remember seeing any beds in there other than the three chambers for the crew
in hibernation.

There is a short scene where you see Poole walking around in the centrifuge
and Bowman is asleep in his hibernaculum. There were 5. There are scenes in

Are two of the other three astronauts to stay out of hibernation on the way
back, I assume?


No. There were 5 hibernaculum in the centrifuge which could double as beds.
Enough for all 5 crew members. Two awake and three asleep on the way out.
All five asleep at mission end until picked up by Discovery II. Well
according to the book.

But in the movie since they were in Jupiter space, and Discovery I was
supposed to be able to return from Jupiter, maybe you're right...

Dave

Pat Flannery writes:
Here's a good one for you: instead of taking bush babies clean up to the
station and then transporting them back to various locations on Earth,
wouldn't it have made more sense for Floyd just to contact a pet shop in the
vicinity of his home and have them deliver one?
In the script the bush baby is going to get to the house the next day, so they
must have a lot of those spaceliners showing up on a daily basis and taking
cargo back to a lot of different cities on Earth.

Um, I always assumed this was a stuffed animal?

"What do you want for your birthday sweetie?"

"A Tasmanian Devil, daddy..."

"OK sweetheart. I'll send you one tomorrow, let's let it be a surprise
for your mother. So be sure to keep it our secret for now ok?"

;-)

Dave