Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1exp 10/6/83; site ihlts.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!security!genrad!decvax!harpo!floyd!clyde!ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe
From: rjnoe@ihlts.UUCP (Roger Noe)
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Re: re: 2001 - (nf)
Message-ID: <229@ihlts.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 17-Oct-83 10:23:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihlts.229
Posted: Mon Oct 17 10:23:08 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 20-Oct-83 03:11:34 EDT
References: <2080@hp-pcd.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, Il
Lines: 17

First of all, I think the time Dave spent in the open emergency airlock is
frequently exaggerated.  (Have you ever noticed how people tend to hold
their breaths during this scene?)  I think it was no more than 5 seconds,
perhaps as little as 3.  Secondly, he was not in a total vacuum.  Much of
the air in the pod would have been blasted into the airlock when the
explosive bolts on the pod door blew.  For the same reason he was not in
absolute zero.  Thirdly, where do you get the idea that boiling of bodily
fluids (interesting . . . didn't Kubrick direct a film whose main conflict
started because of one man's obsession with our precious bodily fluids?  Yes,
Dr. Strangelove)  is instantaneous?  As Clarke states, it takes some time
for this to happen to these well-protected systems.  I refer you also
to Agel's "Making of 2001".  And I wish people would stop mentioning the
HAL/IBM coincidence.  Let's take Clarke's word for it that he didn't
realize it until someone mentioned it well after release.  IBM hasn't even
got a plant in Urbana-Champaign, has it?
-- 
		Roger Noe		...ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe