I have always been interested in spaceflight, especially unmanned exploration as those probes go where no one has gone before ...
Wondered if anyone has other hobbies as well?
(I like running & the internet)

Well... spaceflight, let me think... Unmanned spacecraft maybe
Seriously, I'm especially interested in the ICT involved in unmanned space explorations ( Mars exploration is my all time favorite )
Other hobbies? ... Astronomy & collecting stuff about... unmanned space

Photography and astronomy (including planetary exploration) are my main hobbies. I also do a little bit of video and like to build with lego bricks when I get a chance.

trekking
dreaming...
reading
dreaming...
cooking
dreaming...
painting
dreaming...
writing
dreaming...

Lego, eh? We share a dark secret!

Great scenes From The Movies #45

Bob Shaw

Nice, that scene from the movie " 2001 a space Odyssey ", pitty one of the astros is missing his/her visor...
By the way, do You know the excellent book :
HAL's legacy - 2001's computer as dream and reality ( MIT Press 1997 ) (ISBN 0-262-19378-7)

I suspect they were all boy astronauts - such was then the way! As for the visors, they are a result of my foolish inability to adhere to Rule 1 of toys: DON'T let kids near them!

The book you mention got some good reviews, but I have yet to read it - I did, however, recently obtain a copy of the 1994 Piers Bizony book, 2001: filming the future. It's excellent, with lots of background re the development of Discovery etc. It was published by Aurum Press at £14.95 ISBN 1 85410-365 2. I got mine via eBay for much less than that, though.

Bob Shaw

Was the human crew on the Discovery really necessary? I think HAL 9000 was right - humans just got in the way. It could have easily carried out the mission and likely better communicated with the Monolith than the humans could. What were those three guys in suspended animation supposed to do anyway?

FYI - Some of the book HAL's Legacy is online here:

http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-books/Hal/

For you youngsters out there... you need to know that in the days before DVDs and even VCRs, we would go to theatres and see movies, frequently more than once.

In 1968, the year "2001" came out, and the subsequent two years, I saw that movie in the theatres 31 times...15 of those in Cinerama, the rest in "regular" theatres. Some day I'll have to build my own home Cinerama projection screen so I can relive the thrill as often as I want!

The guys in the hibernaculae - Kaminski, White, and Hunter (or not, depending on the source) - were officially the Jupiter Survey Team, but were actually the ET Contact Squad. Dave Bowman and Frank Poole were just jobbing astronauts, and could well have been treated as redundant, but the other guys were privy to the true goals of the mission. Heywood Floyd's message to Discovery was really just for Bowman and Poole - the others were spooks. For references, try Arthur C Clarke's The Lost Worlds of 2001 and, of course, Jerome Agel's seminal work on 2001. As for poor HAL, he might have communicated with the aliens, but he'd not have made the sort of contact which was desired by them - they required an intelligence capable of transcending, and HAL was never going to do that, but Dave could...

FWIW, Clarke originally called HAl 'Athena'. This makes me somewhat wary of most Mars rovers...

Bob Shaw

Look where this topic is heading ... 2001 a space odyssey !

Anyone using a telescope to watch the planets?
I have a 6 inch refractor with focal length 1200 mm which gives great views of Saturn & Jupiter ... and Mars when the planet is in opposition

I have the same. Mine is a Cave Astrola.