Clavius Base: Difference between revisions

{{Short description|Fictional lunar settlement}}

{{Use British English|date=April 2022}}

{{notability|date=June 2022}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

{{more citations needed|date=April 2022}}

{{Infobox military installation

|name = Clavius Base

|partof =

|location = [[Clavius (crater)|Clavius]], [[Moon]]

|type = [[Colonization of the Moon|Moon base]]

|built = 1994

|builder = United States Astronautical Engineering Corps

'''Clavius Base''' is a fictional [[Colonization of the Moon|lunar settlement]] in the ''[[Space Odyssey]]'' literary universe created by [[Arthur C. Clarke]].

==Clavius Base==

The base, located at [[Clavius crater]], is featured in both the 1968 [[2001: A Space Odyssey (novel)|novel]] and [[2001: A Space Odyssey (film)|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 has 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 to protect it from micro-meteoroid impacts and solar radiation. Incoming spacecraft set down on a landing platform beneath a dome which opens as the vessel descends. The landing platform is part of an enormous elevator, which lowers the spacecraft into a cavernous docking bay, illuminated in red.

Clavius is the main base on the moon, and jointly run by American and Russian administration.<ref>"The picturesque booths were only a few yards from a barrier with two entrances labeled ''WELCOME TO THE U.S. SECTION'' and ''WELCOME TO THE SOVIET SECTION'' ... There was a rather pleasant symbolism about the fact that as soon as they had passed through the barriers, in either direction, passengers were free to mix again. The division was purely for administrative purposes."</ref>

== Events at Clavius Base ==

Clavius was placed under a [[quarantine]] with the cover story of an epidemic when the [[Monolith (Space Odyssey)|Tycho Magnetic Anomaly TMA-1]] artefact was excavated. Dr. [[Heywood R. Floyd]] travelled to the base to investigate the monolith about 18 months prior to the departure of the spacecraft ''[[Discovery One|Discovery]]'' on her mission to [[Jupiter]] (in the novel, [[Saturn]]).

While present at the base, Floyd met with American lunar officials and notified them that as part of the investigation into the Monolith the government was requiring security oaths to be taken from each individual on the base. He then departed for the crater [[Tycho (lunar crater)|Tycho]] on the Moonbus to see the Monolith, and as a result witnessed its unveiling to sunlight.

==Other uses==

* Although not a reuse of the Clavius model, [[Moonbase Alpha (Space: 1999)|Moonbase Alpha]] from the TV series ''[[Space: 1999]]'' is designed using the same concept as Clavius, resulting in remarkable similarity. It is located in another crater, [[Plato (crater)|Plato]].

* In [[Larry Niven]]'s 1999 novel ''[[Rainbow Mars]]'', mention is made of a city in Clavius crater, apparently a reference to Clavius Base from ''2001''. [[Stephen Baxter (author)|Stephen Baxter]], a collaborator of Clarke, also mentions a Clavius Base on the Moon in his 2012 ''[[Doctor Who]]'' novel ''[[The Wheel of Ice]]''.

* The [[BBC Radio 4]] adaptation of Clarke's 1974 novel ''[[Rendezvous with Rama]]'' has the ship ''Endeavour'' landing at Clavius Base following the end of its mission to Rama.

* Clavius Base was the initial name of [[Tom Hanks]]'s film production company. The 1996 film ''[[That Thing You Do!]]'' and 1998 television miniseries ''[[From the Earth to the Moon (TV miniseries)|From the Earth to the Moon]]'' were the only projects from his company under that name; it became [[Playtone]] (named after the record label in the former) in 2000.

* Clavius is referenced in the song "Four Out of Five" by the [[Arctic Monkeys]] on their 2018 album ''[[Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino]]''.

==References==

{{reflist}}

{{Space Odyssey}}

[[Category:Space Odyssey]]

[[Category:Fictional space stations]]

[[Category:Fiction set on the Moon]]