Discovery One
The United States Spacecraft Discovery One is a fictional spaceship featured in the first two novels of the Space Odyssey series by Arthur C. Clarke and in the films 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) directed by Stanley Kubrick and 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984) directed by Peter Hyams. The ship is a nuclear-powered interplanetary spaceship, crewed by two men and controlled by the AI on-board computer HAL 9000. The ship is destroyed in the second novel and makes no further appearances.
| USSC Discovery One | |
|---|---|
Discovery launching an EVA pod | |
| First appearance | 2001: A Space Odyssey |
| Last appearance | 2010: The Year We Make Contact |
| Information | |
| Affiliation | United States |
| Auxiliary vehicles | EVA Pods |
| General characteristics | |
| Registry | XD-1 |
| Propulsion | Cavradyne Plasma Propulsion Engines |
| Power | Nuclear reactor |
| Mass | 6,000 short tons (5,440 t) |
| Length | 460 feet (140.1 m) |
| Width | 55 feet (16.7 m) |
| Height | 56 feet (17 m) |
Clarke and Kubrick developed the first novel and film in parallel, but there were some differences to suit the different media. Kubrick dropped the cooling fins of the ship, fearing they would be interpreted as wings. The itinerary of Discovery One in the book is from Earth orbit via gravitational slingshot around Jupiter to Saturn and parking orbit around the moon Iapetus. Kubrick changed this to the simpler route from Earth to Jupiter.
For the film, Kubrick built an exceptionally large model of the ship so that focus changes did not give away the true small size to the audience. He also built a large, expensive, rotating carousel for the artificial gravity scenes.