Clavius Base

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Clavius Base, as seen from the cockpit of the Aries Ib lunar shuttle.
Clavius Base, as seen from the cockpit of the Aries Ib lunar shuttle.

Clavius Base is a lunar settlement in the fictional "Space Odyssey" universe created by Arthur C. Clarke.

The base, named after German astronomer Christopher Clavius, is featured in both the novel and film versions of 2001: A Space Odyssey. According to the novel, the base was finished in 1994 by United States Astronautical Engineering Corps. If necessary, the base can be self-sustaining.

As depicted on screen, Clavius Base features some surface features (a landing pad and control tower, together with other ancillary support structures), but the vast majority of the base is located beneath the Lunar surface.

The spacecraft sets down on a landing platform beneath a dome which opens as the spacecraft descends. The landing platform proves to be the platform of an enormous elevator, which lowers the spacecraft into a cavernous docking bay, illuminated in red. Most of the base has been built underground to protect it from micro-meteoroid impacts and solar radiation.

Moonbase Alpha from the TV series Space 1999 is located in another crater, Plato.

Clavius Base is, apparently, the central focus of American activities on the Moon, and is under the control of the United States Astronautics Agency.

[edit] Events at Clavius Base

Clavius Base was placed under a quarantine with the cover story of an outbreak of some form of infection when the TMA-1 (Tycho Magnetic Anomaly 1) artifact (later known as The Monolith) was excavated. Dr. Heywood Floyd traveled to the base to investigate the monolith eighteen months prior to the departure of the spacecraft Discovery on her mission to Jupiter (in the novel, Saturn).

While present at the base, Dr. Floyd met with American lunar officials and notified them that the government was requiring individual security oaths to be taken from each individual on the base.

Following his meeting with officials at Clavius, Floyd departed for the crater Tycho on the ‘Moonbus’.

[edit] Other Uses

In Rainbow Mars, mention is made of a city in Clavius Crater, apparently a reference to Clavius Base from 2001.

Clavius Base is also the name of a film production company. To date, its productions are:

Although not readily verifiable, it appears that this production company was started by actor Tom Hanks, who was part of both of its productions and who has stated in interviews that 2001 is his favorite film.