Latest WIP, more alternate “2001 A Space Odyssey” designs.

2001 Discovery, alternate version

Now working on alternate unused designs for the 2001 Discovery, of which there were many. This one is fairly close to the finished version, but had added tension cables (helpful), and large cooling vanes (essential).

The vanes can tip – this would presumably be so they can stay edge on to the Sun, to avoid overheating.

Credible design for the craft like “Discovery” in “2001, A Space Odyssey” was considered very important, but the cooling vanes looked too much like wings, and were therefore dropped.

vanes-cables-01-0060 vanes-cables-01-0090

vanes-cables-01-0120 vanes-cables-01-0150

Not at all happy with the nurneys on the main habitation sphere yet…

8 thoughts on “Latest WIP, more alternate “2001 A Space Odyssey” designs.”

  1. I’VE ALWAYS WANTED SOMEONE TO REPLICATE THIS VERSION OF KUBRICK’S DISCOVERY. THESE LOOK ABSOLUTELY OUTSTANDING BUT YOU NEED MORE TENSION CABLES RUNNING THE LENGTH OF THE SPINE TO MATCH KUBRICK’S VERSION. THERE IS AN EXCELLENT PHOTO OF WHAT I AM REFERRING TO IN THE SOFTBACK COFFEE TABLE SIZE BOOK “2001:THE LOST SCIENCE”. REGARDLESS, THESE IMAGES ARE GREAT. ALL YOUR STUFF IS OUTRAGEOUS, BY THE WAY, ESP. YOUR VON BRAUN PORTFOLIOS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR CREATIONS.

    1. I think that was my first proper comment!
      Thanks very much for the kind words, it all helps gee me up!

      This was based on combinations of elements from the Chris Frayling book, the 2001 File. Essential for any 2001 fan.

  2. Just received Moebius Models’ fairly new 1/350 scale plastic model kit of Discovery & was poking around looking for illustrations of the radiators which a decision was made to omit from the filming model.
    These are nice. I’ll build something a little different but yours give good idea for probable size.
    The rotation to allow for remaining edge-on to the sun sounds like a good idea.
    And, man, I would like if someone was offering etched metal parts for those rings for the tensioning cables, I like that idea & the three-dimensional layering it creates. Slipping the cargo modules in and out between cables and ship spine might be slow, but nothing moves at breakneck speed at the ISS we have.
    And that brings up a question I’ve not looked in to, how those cargo modules were to be handled, and what exactly was the cargo. Been a very long time since reading the book or seeing the movie; no current memory of whether either gave that info.

  3. Now, the radiator wings of an early Discovery would allow it to look nice next to the Hugo Drax space station from Moonraker—the spaceplane from 2001 would fit both.

    But my head canon also wants Moonraker shuttles to fly inside the 2001 Space Station V.

    Visually speaking—a better fit
    —publiusr

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