Space Station V is a fictional space station seen in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Operational, it is a large, international, rotating wheel space station used as a transfer point from Low Earth orbit to the moon and other planets. It also functions as an orbital hotel. Rotation of the station provides artificial gravity for people aboard the station. The station contains two docking bays for docking spacecraft, placed on its rotational axis at the opposite sides of the construction. By the time of events depicted in the film, it is still under construction, with the incomplete second wheel. A Hilton hotel is located on board the film version of the vessel, the company's logo visible on screen in several scenes.
The rotating wheel depicted in the movie traces its lineage back to wheeled space station designs by Wernher von Braun and Herman Potočnik, the latter describing such a space station design in his book The Problem of Space Travel - The Rocket Motor (1928). The studio model was reported to be eight feet wide (Bizony) or six feet wide (Agel), and stuffed with tiny lights behind the windows. Due to its large size and delicate structure, the model always seemed in danger of breaking apart. Kubrick had most of the models and props used in 2001 destroyed, discarded, or securely stored away so they would not be used in productions not under his control. When the Borehamwood, England studio used to shoot the film was demolished in the early 1970s, the model for Space Station V was dumped in a field about 20 miles away. It was destroyed by vandals a few days later.
Read more about this topic: List Of Spacecraft From The Space Odyssey Series
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