2001: A Space Odyssey

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I still can't shake the feeling that the authorities should have been able to convince HAL of the necessity of keeping the monolith's existence from Frank and Dave, without giving HAL a complex.

Since HAL is absolutely dedicated to the mission, they should have just told him that it's not important for the mission (and can even be detrimental to it) that Frank and Dave know about the monolith. That should have set HAL straight right then and there.

 

[DonIago]

Can someone refresh my memory as to why it was considered such a big deal that Frank and Dave not know about the monolith? How was the mission supposed to play out such that they wouldn't find out about it regardless?

 

[Marc]

Can someone refresh my memory as to why it was considered such a big deal that Frank and Dave not know about the monolith? How was the mission supposed to play out such that they wouldn't find out about it regardless?

security, secrecy and cold-war paranoia would be my guess.

By the time Frank n Dave found out about it, Discovery would have arrived at Monolith and the Americans would have first dibs on it.

Remember they also concocted a story to cover up the discovery (no pun intended) of the Monolith on the Moon.

 

[Ithekro]

The Americans didn't want someone to make a fast trek out to the gas giants (be it Jupiter or Saturn) and get there first. If I recall, in the novel for 2010, a Chinese spacecraft took a dangerous high speed route to Jupiter and suffered a crash or somesuch problem near Europa.

The Russians managing to talk the Americans into a joint mission because something was effecting USS Discovery's orbit and thus the American mission might not arrive in time. The Russians wanting people who knew what they were doing rather than bungle on an American ship.

 

[Marc]

The Americans didn't want someone to make a fast trek out to the gas giants (be it Jupiter or Saturn) and get there first. If I recall, in the novel for 2010, a Chinese spacecraft took a dangerous high speed route to Jupiter and suffered a crash or somesuch problem near Europa.

The Russians managing to talk the Americans into a joint mission because something was effecting USS Discovery's orbit and thus the American mission might not arrive in time. The Russians wanting people who knew what they were doing rather than bungle on an American ship.

The Chinese ship landed on Europa to take on water\fuel but awoke the life there and it didn’t end well.

 

[DonIago]

security, secrecy and cold-war paranoia would be my guess.

By the time Frank n Dave found out about it, Discovery would have arrived at Monolith and the Americans would have first dibs on it.

Remember they also concocted a story to cover up the discovery (no pun intended) of the Monolith on the Moon.

This almost makes it sound as though HAL suffered a breakdown mostly because he couldn't deal with keeping his mouth shut a bit longer.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Can someone refresh my memory as to why it was considered such a big deal that Frank and Dave not know about the monolith?

In their communications back home, they might let slip that the monolith existed, and thus cause a scene.

The Americans weren't keeping the monolith secret because they wanted dibs, they were keeping it secret so the general population wouldn't panic.

In the end, Frank and Dave's job was simply to get Discovery to Jupiter. The reasons why, are not their concern. That's what the survey team (in cryogenic sleep) was for. Whatever is not directly connected to getting Discovery to Jupiter...Frank and Dave don't need to know. Simple as that.

 

[DonIago]

I guess monitoring their transmissions to make sure that didn't happen wasn't an option?

I know, I know, it's a movie/novel, but still....

 

[Ithekro]

I guess monitoring their transmissions to make sure that didn't happen wasn't an option?

I know, I know, it's a movie/novel, but still....

From the 1960s.

 

[Kraig]

I saw 2001:A Space Odyssy in a Florida theater in the summer of 1968. I traveled with my parents from California to Gainesville, Florida. My father got his Education Doctorate from University of Florida in 1958 and was invited as an alum to return after 10 years and speak to other students in the Ed.D. program. I spent most of my days swimming in the motel pool. The motel was across the street from a shopping mall with a theater. The day 2001 opened in Gainesville for a showing, I went to the mall to watch the movie. I had to cross a Klu Klux Klan picket line blocking the entrance to the theater, protesting the showing of 2001:A Space Odyssy. I think the KKK objected to the film showing the theory of evolution because of the scenes in the beginning with the apes and the monolith. I was 4 ft. 11 in. tall eleven year old, and not intimidated by their protest.

The Chinese ship landed on Europa to take on water\fuel but awoke the life there and it didn’t end well.

Didn't the Chinese ship also have trouble when they tried to lift off because the heat of the engines melted the landing surface and they sank to meet the life below the ice layer? I could be misremembering, it has been a long time since I read the book.

 

[Maurice]

I saw 2001:A Space Odyssy in a Florida theater in the summer of 1968. I traveled with my parents from California to Gainesville, Florida. My father got his Education Doctorate from University of Florida in 1958 and was invited as an alum to return after 10 years and speak to other students in the Ed.D. program. I spent most of my days swimming in the motel pool. The motel was across the street from a shopping mall with a theater. The day 2001 opened in Gainesville for a showing, I went to the mall to watch the movie. I had to cross a Klu Klux Klan picket line blocking the entrance to the theater, protesting the showing of 2001:A Space Odyssy. I think the KKK objected to the film showing the theory of evolution because of the scenes in the beginning with the apes and the monolith. I was 4 ft. 11 in. tall eleven year old, and not intimidated by their protest.



Didn't the Chinese ship also have trouble when they tried to lift off because the heat of the engines melted the landing surface and they sank to meet the life below the ice layer? I could be misremembering, it has been a long time since I read the book.

Their lights attracted the creature IIRC.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

The Americans didn't want someone to make a fast trek out to the gas giants (be it Jupiter or Saturn) and get there first. If I recall, in the novel for 2010, a Chinese spacecraft took a dangerous high speed route to Jupiter and suffered a crash or somesuch problem near Europa.

I loved the sequence with the Tsien in the novel, so I was disappointed when it didn't appear in the film.

I was also nine when I read the novel and 11 when the film came out, so my ideas about what made good movies were strange.

 

[Orac]

When a new keyboard came in the mail wrapped in black plastic last year, I was inspired to take these photos with my phone:

 

[Allyn Gibson]

It always amused me that the dimensions of the original PS2 were 1 by 4 by... 7 1/2. Sony could have made it 1 by 4 by 9, dang it!

 

[publiusr]

Maybe the Monolith had an effect on HAL.

 

[Vger23]

In their communications back home, they might let slip that the monolith existed, and thus cause a scene.

The Americans weren't keeping the monolith secret because they wanted dibs, they were keeping it secret so the general population wouldn't panic.

In the end, Frank and Dave's job was simply to get Discovery to Jupiter. The reasons why, are not their concern. That's what the survey team (in cryogenic sleep) was for. Whatever is not directly connected to getting Discovery to Jupiter...Frank and Dave don't need to know. Simple as that.

That's correct. And, with the two of them under relatively constant media exposure (and having the ability to send personal transmissions etc), it also came down to risk management and plausible deniability.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I honestly don't know why Frank and Dave's transmissions back home were (apparently) not monitored or censored. I admit, that's kind of a plot hole. I guess the government just assumed that since the guys didn't know about the monolith, their transmissions didn't NEED to be monitored.

Perhaps the NCA officials who would have been in charge of monitoring their transmissions, THEY couldn't be trusted with knowing about the monolith either? I mean, if the NCA is keeping the number of people in the know, to an absolute minimum, then that'd be the way to go.

 

[David cgc]

It's a scientific mission. There'd be no reason for their radio transmissions back to Earth to be encoded or scrambled, and doing so would only indicate that there was something secret or untoward about the mission. And so, since anyone with a radio receiver could theoretically listen to the downlink from the ship (just like you can today, more easily, in fact, because the ISS is only within line-of-sight for less than ten minutes of any give point on Earth), it'd be impossible to intercept or censor their messages before the public got them.

 

[DonIago]

^That doesn't track.

When Discovery reached the monolith they'd presumably have to communicate back to Earth about it, which means that either there was no point in keeping the existence of the monolith a secret because the public would hear about it in any case, or their transmissions were being (or were going to be) encoded or scrambled to continue to maintain secrecy regarding the monolith.

Or was there going to be no communication back to Earth regarding whatever Discovery...discovered...at their destination, and that was how secrecy would be maintained?

 

[David cgc]

I thought about following that line of thought in my post, but it all boils down to the fact that, eventually, the Monoliths were going to have to be made public, but we know nothing about when or how that was planned to be done, or why they were waiting as long as they did.

If I was going to speculate, I'd say the idea was to maintain the fiction that Discovery was just on the same planned mission from before the Monolith was discovered until it reached Jupiter. The mission specialists would be woken up, and would investigate whatever it was the Tycho Monolith was talking to, and would report back (probably on a scramble), and then the U.S. Government would figure out how to sell whatever they found to the public once they had some answers. That serves the dual purpose of keeping anyone else from trying to beat the Discovery to Jupiter (as happened in the novel of 2010, where the Chinese attempted to salvage Discovery before the joint U.S./Soviet mission could get there, without giving themselves away and causing the Leonov mission to also expedite its launch), and delaying disclosure until they discover if Jupiter has an alien city, or a doomsday machine, or whatever would cut back on panic and baseless speculation by the public before anyone got to Jupiter and learned what was there.