2001: EVA Pod Interior

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Welcome to my documents related to the iconic space pods featured in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film, 2001: a Space Odyssey. Check the sidebar to the left (or click on the three line icon) to see other related pages.

Introduction

The EVA (extravehicular activity) pods shown in the film 2001: a Space Odyssey had surprisingly complicated interiors. The internal cockpit set was created and built using the finest technical knowledge available in the mid 1960s.

The vehicles were designed primarily by Harry Lange with Frederick Ordway III, in consultation with designers and engineers from Hawker Siddeley Dynamics (the interior) and the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation (the exterior), among others. The former was a British aerospace company that consulted on and actually built the pod interior. The latter was an American aircraft manufacturer that consulted on the pod exterior, and was the primary contractor on the Apollo LEM craft. Both firms later merged with other companies and no longer exist today.

The interiors have also been really difficult to figure out and reverse-engineer. The blueprints for the pod set internals no longer exist, so far as I know. And until the 4K releases and some of the photos from the Stanley Kubrick Archives came to light, it was a real challenge understanding the internal geometry of the panels, walls, and ceiling.

Various fellow enthusiasts, including Dennis Gilliam, Paul Bodensiek, and Tom Reddie, have done considerable and stellar research into how the various panels and whatnots fit together, and what they had on them. Reddie, in particular, built a superb and assiduously researched 3D model of the pod interior. And I think there's a pretty good understanding now of what the interior geometry was like. The Moebius Models plastic model kit released in 2018 appears to build on this work and has a decent rendition of the EVA pod's interior.

The Cockpit Concept

The basic concept was for the pilot to sit inside a spherical pod, surrounded by flat and easily accessible control surfaces. These panels were triangles and polygons carefully designed to fit into the available space. Only the frontmost panel, which bears the pair of separated computer displays, was curved – it was dished downwards.

Behind the scenes photographs show that a fibreglass sphere was made for the pod interior. The inner surfaces were almost all painted a very dark brick red; slightly more maroon in tone than brown. The walls and ceiling appear scarlet red in the final film because of the interior's red lighting, but medium format transparencies taken following set construction clearly show the brick-red interior colour, as does the still image shown below. Note that the small vertical panel just below the frontmost control panel (the vertical panel to which the cylindrical manipulator controllers were fastened, in front of the pilot’s knees) was also brick red.

The rear walls were padded with black synthetic leather. There's a known photo of Frederick Ordway inside a pod under construction, showing the underside of a panel, and it reveals the everyday banality of a bunch of ordinary furniture upholstery nails used to hold the leatherette finish onto the plywood! The bulging of each panel shows that foam was placed behind the leatherette.

Plywood on a wood frame was used to make the interior control panels, which had complex polygonal shapes at various angles for the various operating surfaces. Closeup photos of the panel surfaces show that they had a kind of satin black finish, with a brushed texture. They thus probably had Formica-type laminated plastic over top of the plywood panels.

The interior cockpit shooting set

The pod's cockpit interior set had removable panels or walls (known to cinematographers and set designers as “floating,” “wild,” or “flyaway” walls) which would allow the camera to be inserted into the set as required. In this awesome behind the scenes shot you can see Kubrick, cigarette ever-present, directing Gary Lockwood as Poole. They're inside the separate interior set, which has its ceiling, door, and port side removed.

The interior set was of course large enough to hold both actors during the lip-reading scene. Note that they're not sitting on seats during that conversation, since there weren't any on the sides. They're actually sitting on the storage box lids, next to the armrests.

The pod bay set is clearly visible through the window in this sequence. To achieve this the middle pod was taken out of the pod bay and the interior set forklifted into place. You can tell that the view out the window is not a Duratrans or some other projection, since the lighting is spot on, plus the animated HAL screen works. More on this later.

Pods: Inside and Out

While very cool, the interior actually represents a continuity issue in the film. We see three pods in the pod bay, and a couple of the pods being used in space. We also see footage of the astronauts piloting their pods, showing the interior of the vehicles.

However the exterior size of the cockpit interior set could not have fit inside the interior of the pod bay or space scene pods. The cockpit interior and full-sized pods were built to different sizes.

Most people have no idea that this was the case, of course. Skilful framing and intercutting means it's not at all obvious on-screen.

This method of representing something through the use of two completely different film sets is a pretty common technique when making films and TV shows, much to the consternation of fans trying to get that perfect canonical representation of a beloved spaceship or apartment or whatever. There's no way in hell the Millennium Falcon's internal hold set would ever have fit into the set representing the outside of the ship. The Overlook Hotel’s exterior couldn’t have accommodated its interior. Massive warehouse-sized sitcom apartments could never fit into the external street views of that apartment building. And so on.

This matters for a film's budget, but is frustrating for model makers!

Pod bay interior set

Two of the three pods parked in the bay apparently had rudimentary interiors, but only one is really seen in the film. The middle pod is clearly, albeit partially, visible for the scenes of the astronauts boarding the vehicle. You can see the reduced-scale cockpit interior mockup in these views.

This bay pod with interior was never seen directly from the front in the final film (just at an angle when the pod rotates with both astronauts inside). However, there are a lot of promotional still images of the actors in their suits inside the pod sets, such as the photo below. There are also photos and storyboards in the Archives of a filmed sequence showing Bowman inside his pod, as the rectractable platform is drawn back into the bay. This post-spacewalk scene was not included in the movie. It is likely one of the scenes trimmed from the film for general release, following the premiere in April 1968.

Comparing the interiors

There are many differences in overall geometry and detailing between the pod interior in the pod bay, and the pod cockpit built for interior filming, all stemming from the reduced physical size of the former compared to the latter. Consider the rectangular pushbutton panel in the following two pictures.

At first glance they look quite similar, but close examination reveals that they were completely different. The left image shows Keir Dullea inside the pod bay mockup set. The right image shows him in the fully kitted-out cockpit interior set.

Notice how compressed the left-hand panel is – the buttons are closer together. While the blue and white buttons are the same size, there is less vertical space between each row. (ie: I'm not talking about the apparent size difference because the right hand buttons are illuminated) The right hand panel is expanded slightly because of the larger amount of room to fill.

Here are two more photos, both screenshots from the actual movie.

On the left you can see the view into the pod from the pod bay shot shown earlier in this article. On the right you can see the cockpit interior set from the scene when the astronauts discuss what to do with HAL.

It's easy to see that geometry of the two sets is totally different. Buttons on the lower left console are missing, and the illuminated buttons are fewer in number. The side displays on the pod bay set are outlined in white, versus outlined in pale blue in the cockpit set. The centre displays seem to be missing altogether from the pod bay set. The hand controller prop, which is presumably the same prop moved from one set to the other, clearly shows that the interiors were sized very differently.

The Trumbull photos

For a long time this size difference in pod interiors has been known through research, conjecture, and analysis of screenshots, but we never had a view of the outside of the cockpit interior set.

In July 2024, however, a collection of photographs, documenting 2001's behind the scenes production, went up for auction. These photos came from the collection of Douglas Trumbull, the visual effects expert who was then a young but essential crewmember on 2001.

Scans of some of these photos and contact negative sheets were published by auction house Propstore in order to promote the sale, and it's been possible to glean valuable information from these photos.

Incidentally, the daily continuity report for this sequence – the two astronauts sitting inside the pod discussing their AI problems – still exists. Filming occurred on Friday 6 May 1966, and 24 takes were made, but only one was printed. A 28mm Panavision lens, set to a T-stop of T3, was used on a Super Panavision camera. Focus was at 2'3". The shot is described as MEDIUM SHOT BOWMAN & POOLE SEATED F.G. HAL & TEST BENCH SEEN THROUGH WINDOW OF POD.

Specifically the Trumbull photos establish beyond any doubt that the interior set of the EVA pod was indeed temporarily installed in the middle of the pod bay set in order to film the scene when the astronauts plot against HAL. And the interior set was clearly too big to fit inside the exterior shells of the pod, since the exterior of the interior set was approximately the same size as the exterior of the full-sized pods. On top of that the window recess and the vestibule-like tunnel from the door to the cockpit interior also occupy space.

Here are a few observations about the cockpit interior.

• On the left side you can see the bottom edge of the upper half of the pod interior. It has a noticeable lip with two bolts visible. This looks like a fibreglass shell, fastened to the frame below.

• That frame appears to have been a ring of flat metal bars.

• The whole outer edge was resting on some lashed-together wooden struts, though the bulk of the weight would have rested on the base of the pod interior, in the centre.

• The window recess is clearly a fibreglass cast, made from the same moulds used to make the window recesses on the full-sized pods. It wasn't painted to resemble black rubber, however, the way the full-sized pods were.

• It's interesting that they used this cast recess since you can't see it in the finished film. But according to continuity reports, the lipreading scene was actually filmed as a zoom, and the entire windowframe was visible, showing the two astronauts talking.

• It's also interesting that it's glazed with a curved piece of material, probably thin acrylic.

• The rows of illuminated pushbuttons are clearly seen from the back, with the neat rows of wiring to power the lights.

• The backs of the toggle switches and four lights inside the round interior panel can be seen.

• Unfortunately Stanley Kubrick is standing inconveniently in front of the edge of the front control panels.

• I'm not sure what the pile of white material on top of the pod is all about. Perhaps these were the straps used to hold the pod down on the forklift while it was moved.

• Because they were filming shots through the open back door, and the interior ceiling was visible, none of the wild or floating walls (removable sections) of the pod were removed – they were all in place. Other photos reveal that the various sections of the pod ceiling could also be lifted out for filming purposes.

• The first side view shows Kubrick peering through the 65mm camera's viewfinder. This is clearly during setup for filming of the two astronauts' conversation. The curved flat section to the right, screwed in place with a flat metal bar, is the back of the vestibule-like corridor that leads from the door to the interior.

• The second side view shows the same scene being set up. Here we can see the unfinished exterior of the pod's door. The dark rectangle to the top is a panel with a couple of buttons and flip-up panel. The two medium-grey panels in the centre are where the internal recesses for the black handles are located.

• Interestingly you can see that there's no hole between the handle recesses where the countdown timer would have been projected. Since a continuity/light level test Polaroid exists showing that a backlit projection was made but never made the final cut, it seems that the plotting scene was filmed before the explosive bolts scene.

• Finally the third back view shows that the enormous heavy Panavision camera wasn't on a tripod or stand, but on a seemingly precarious stack of apple boxes! I guess that's one way to get the camera positioned far enough forward for the wide angle lens to take in the conversation. It also meant that if either actor needed to get out to go to the toilet or whatever they'd have to move the camera and boxes out first.

• The monstrous 65mm Super Panavision camera is soundproofed, since they were recording on-set dialogue.

Interior lighting

The five visible light fixtures were recessed, covered with white frosted material, and contained red light bulbs. So they were white when off, but red when on. The scarlet glow gave a submarine-like look to the interior. People often assume that the plastic surfaces of the lights were red because of this, but they weren't.

However, additional lights were used to supplement the practical lights built into the set, since the actors' faces were often lit with white light.

During scenes of the astronauts looking forward into the camera lens, Kubrick had images from the displays projected onto their faces. I'm sure he knew full well that computer monitors don't project sharply focused images onto anything, but they just looked cool.

Pushbuttons

The panels were covered with tons of illuminated pushbuttons. They were actual buttons, and not merely backlit acrylic plastic squares or a simple approximation like that. There's a photo in the Archives of a technician working on the panels, and you can see masses of wires underneath each surface, for all the hundreds of buttons and their associated miniature incandescent bulbs. Conjecture: the buttons do not appear to be standard off-the-shelf 1960s industrial pushbuttons, so it seems probable that they were acrylic buttons handcrafted by either Hawker Siddeley or studio staff, with miniature light bulbs and suitable electrical switches underneath.

The buttons were grouped in colours, and the colour came from the plastic of the buttons. (ie: they weren't all white buttons with different coloured light bulbs – the buttons were different colours of plastic). Blueprints make reference to Perspex blue 725, Perspex yellow 250, orange 363, and opal 030 plastics, though this numbering system does not appear to be in use today with the exception of opal 030. The white (opal) buttons had a slightly yellowish cast on film because of the use of tungsten incandescent bulbs.

This wasn't a 1960s BatComputer - there weren't any meaningless and random flashing Christmas lights all over the place. I think I've only ever seen one light on one left-hand panel flash without someone physically pressing the button. The switches were wired to turn the button lights on and off when pressed, and you can see this in the film.

The pushbuttons were also all individually labelled. Closeup photos of the panels reveal that almost every single pushbutton contained a piece of text identifying its function. (ON, OFF, EXTEND, RETRACT, LOCK, CONTRAST, etc etc) A few buttons also had arrow icons in addition to the text. Only two buttons, located on the rear starboard side, are blank with no text for some reason.

High resolution photos exist of enough of the set interior to be able to decipher maybe around 80% of all the buttons on the interior. Of note is that none of the buttons make any narrative mention of vehicle names (Discovery XD-1), organization names (USAA), the computer (HAL 9000), etc. Fan-conjectured buttons often contain this type of information.

Features were positioned together in labelled logical groups, so a particular set of buttons might be said to be controlling one area of pod operations. This is in keeping with Kubrick's insistence that everything about the sets be as believable and convincing as possible. This wasn't about slapping random bits of text on stuff. The groups had rectangular white and blue outlines drawn around them. Closeup photographs of these surfaces suggest that the lines were actually painted or silkscreened onto the plastic surfaces. This is unlike the low-cost panels of the Millennium Falcon, for example, where automotive pinstriping tape was used. (another set that Harry Lange designed and worked on)

Switches

In addition to the pushbuttons there are a few locations where regular store-bought 1960s toggle and paddle switches (the kind you flip up or down) are visible.

The back panel on the starboard rear wall has a row of chromed toggle switches above the row of green lights. Bowman flicks these off, one by one, during the lip-reading scene. Funnily enough, in the film the second and third switches are installed slightly higher than the others in the row. (ie: they weren't perfectly in line)

The two round panels on the wall, to either side of the window, also have switches, though they were black-handled paddle switches. Each switch had a chromed ring holding it in place. The panel on the starboard (right) side had six switches - two rows of three. The one on the port (left) side only had two switches with a gap between them where a third would have been. It's kind of hilarious to see these cheap flip switches, of the kind seen in any Radio Shack store for decades, in this supposedly futuristic spaceship.

Round panel continuity error

Amusingly the cockpit’s recessed round panels are upside-down in most scenes.

The proper orientation of the starboard panel (the one above) is with the six flat paddle switches at the top, and the three blue illuminated pushbuttons at the bottom. I can confidently say this is correct because a high-rez picture in the Archives has fully readable text on the buttons and panel.

However, the panel shows up more often upside-down in the film than right-side up. More specifically, when the pod cockpit interior set was being filmed standalone on a sound stage (ie: most scenes in the movie) then it was upside-down with the three illuminated blue buttons at the bottom. When the pod interior was moved onto the pod bay set then it was correctly oriented with the three buttons at the top. You can see this in the photos below.

I can't say with certainty what the correct orientation of the two-switch panel on the port side should be, because I haven't found any high-rez shots of it showing the text. It seems reasonable that the three blue pushbuttons were at the bottom to match the starboard panel. But in one brief scene the port-side panel is rotated 90°, making the row of three illuminated buttons vertical.

The “explosive bolts” controller

There's an anodized green aluminium box containing a set of buttons for triggering the explosive bolts for releasing the back door. This was actually a repurposed personal equipment connector (PEC) from a Martin Baker ejection seat for a fighter plane. This is half of a special device that feeds main oxygen, emergency oxygen, and electronic connections between the seat assembly and the cockpit. It's specially designed to be able to separate instantly if the ejection seat needs to be fired off.

The round “pushbuttons” that Bowman presses in the film are thus actually hose connectors, and not electrical buttons at all! It was one of the few obviously repurposed bits of set dressing seen inside the pod cockpit.

A safety cover was also clipped over the box containing the buttons. This was the matching half of the PEC, with an apparently custom-machined polished aluminium plate on the front (the piece shown below under Bowman's thumb).

For most of the film this cover was clipped over the box. However, Bowman stows the removed cover in the small box on top of the flat triangular area below his right elbow - it wasn't left to float randomly around the pod cockpit. We never actually see the storage box being opened, but Bowman definitely uses it, though the box is out of frame. If you look closely at the film you can see a split-second glimpse of the lid being flipped closed.

This is the storage box I mentioned at the top of this page - it’s part rectangular at the front with an angled back edge, where the hinges were. It's not square or rectangular, as it's been depicted before, when it's been depicted at all.

Incidentally the pod bay interior set has a safety cover with black circles on it, something that the cockpit set (above) did not have.

Display technology

One of the conceptual technological breakthroughs in the film was the use of reconfigurable display monitors for data output. Back in the 1960s, vehicle and technical input controllers still corresponded basically 1:1 with the actual thing being controlled. In other words, you'd have a switch that opened a flap, or a lever that controlled a device's output. You'd also have output devices in the form of dials, gauges, and lights that only showed one type of information – temperature, airspeed, pressure, etc. I consider these to be kind of first-generation interfaces.

2001's scientific advisors recommended that Kubrick use display monitors on his spaceships. These would be television-type screens capable of displaying all kinds of informational content. So instead of tons of dedicated dials and meters you'd have these screens, showing computer-driven graphic information in a flexible and reconfigurable fashion. These I consider to be second generation since the output has been decoupled from the input.

The next logical step in designing control interfaces came with Star Trek: the Next Generation in 1987. Its designer Michael Okuda introduced the idea of display panels that not only showed different types of information, but which were instantly reconfigurable touchscreen interface devices as well, thus eliminating the need for specific controls for specific functions. Ironically this approach arose from a desire to limit costs, since backlit transparencies were cheaper than building panels festooned with physical switches. But the show helped create a compelling vision of the future – one we experience every day with our touchscreen phones and computers. I consider this technology to be a third generation interface since the same panels are used for both input and output.

Anyway. 2001 didn't go as far as Star Trek TNG, since the input devices (the pushbuttons, mostly) were still very much related to single functions. But Kubrick's high-tech computer screens were quite dazzling for the time. They were also perfectly flat, unlike the bulging glass tubes of ordinary CRT TVs. This was again on the advice of the scientific advisors, who suggested that by 2001 it would be possible to build completely flat displays. We had to wait decades before decent LCD monitors became possible, though by the real year 2001 they were well on the way to taking over the market. Unfortunately the non-Kubrick sequel to 2001, 2010, took a mighty leap backwards by using ugly bulging CRT displays for its monitors.

Simulating the displays

All the spacecraft featured in 2001: a Space Odyssey boasted full complements of digital flat-panel displays, continuously updated by on-board computers. Super high tech stuff!

So high tech, in fact, that the filmmakers didn’t use a single computer to create this futuristic illusion, because digital technology for realtime animation simply did not exist in 1968. Instead they laboriously constructed the display output on 35mm movie film by photographing drawings, Letraset rub-down lettering, and typewritten cards on an animation stand. These handcrafted “computer” sequences were then transferred to reels of 16mm film and projected onto flat screens built into the sets. The film's sleek modernistic consoles were actually concealing a prosaic reality: 1960s 16mm projectors and miles of wiring! This also required a lot of clearance on the underside to accommodate the projector mechanisms and reels, and to provide adequate airflow for the hot projection bulbs.

The graphics on the displays was primarily supervised and photographed by Douglas Trumbull. Much of the work on the projectors was by special effects technician Brian Johnson, who later went on to supervise special effects for the Empire Strikes Back and Alien, amongst many other films. 

Hawker Siddeley logo

Many different companies contributed ideas and consulting assistance to the hardware of 2001. One of these was now-defunct British aerospace manufacturer Hawker Siddeley, best remembered today for developing the Harrier jump jet aircraft.

Hawker Siddeley Dynamics was a contractor for 2001, and photos exist in the Archives of a team of HS staff paying a visit to EMI Elstree. In fact, according to Ordway quoted in Frayling’s The 2001 File, Hawker Siddeley actually constructed the pod interior set at their Stevenage facility. As an acknowledgement, there's a tiny nameplate on the dashboard of the pod with the Hawker Siddeley logo. Sadly for the company, it's virtually impossible to see in the actual film!

The nameplate is the same size as one of the rectangular pushbuttons, and is located on the port side of the pod interior, just below the left-hand paired display. Here's my reconstruction of what the plate looked like. I used Univers 46 Light Condensed Oblique for this reconstruction, but I don't know for certain if it's what was used in the original. The plate was white, and had a thin black line inset.

Interestingly the Stevenage facilities of Hawker Siddeley Dynamics housed the Reinforced and Microwave Plastics Group, which would have been the ideal specialist facility for making the large fibreglass components that made up both the interior cockpit and the exterior of the pod. This is conjecture on my part, however, as I have no confirmation that this was the case.

The hand controllers

There were two types of hand controllers inside the cockpit set. I've written up a separate page about those.

The greebly box

A little-known odd detail of the EVA pod is a funny-looking collection of random greeblies stuck to a panel. It's situated right next to the left-hand control cylinder for operating the exterior manipulators (waldo controllers). Here's a low-resolution photo showing that area.

I've modelled this panel thingie, based on an unpublished Keith Hamshere high-resolution colour transparency, and I think it looked something like this. This isn't perfect, and I simplified the rods with nuts and the wires somewhat, but it's reasonably close.

The panel, which looks like it was made of a bunch of electrical relays and whatnot fastened to an aluminium heat sink or something like that, was painted a uniform brick red, just like the vertical panel it was affixed to, and indeed the whole interior of the pod. However the sort of knob/toothpaste tube cap thing at the lower left side, and the light-bulb like spherical thing on the lower right were both bright red.

The hydraulic details

A bunch of small complicated-looking boxes, apparently connected by hoses, are located all over the interior of the pod. All are fastened to the red-brown curvature of the pod ceiling, and all are painted the same colour as the ceiling.

I haven’t been able to determine what precisely they used to make these details, but they do appear to be found objects, and they closely resemble hydraulic devices still sold today. They also look similar to the black greebly objects located around the perimeter of the circular black grid used as landing platforms in the pod bay set.

Most of the boxes appear in high-resolution Keith Hamshere photos, but four are only partially known through low-rez shots and screenshots from the movie.

In addition to these hydraulic objects there is small black handrail, identical to two silver handrails seen inside the Discovery cockpit set, screwed to the ceiling right above the door. Actor Gary Lockwood, who played astronaut Frank Poole, said that he suggested the installation of this handrail to Kubrick when they were rehearsing scenes when they had to enter the pod.

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