2001: A Space Odyssey

This chapter concerns the maintenance of the ship now that it has no crew and no computer. Bowman does many routine tasks while computers on Earth take over Hal’s former duties, despite the time lag. Though Bowman’s life will ultimately depend on the hibernation system, he does not check whether it is working. He doesn’t think about such “long-range problems,” focusing on establishing the ship into “an automatic routine” (164). Once this is achieved, he studies the footage of TMA-1’s discovery and the briefings he has been sent about it. The measurements of the monolith are in the precise ratio 1 to 4 to 9—squares of the first three integers. Bowman thinks about Mission Control’s justification for secrecy—that human nature is fundamentally xenophobic and would suffer culture shock from contact with another species—and wonders if it might also be an effort by the US-USSR bloc “to derive advantage” from being the first to contact extraterrestrials (166). From his perspective deep in space, this seems “ludicrously parochial.” Bowman turns his attention to Hal’s behavior. He reflects that if humans couldn’t understand Hal’s capacity for guilt and the psychology that created this conflict in him, they have little hope of establishing “communications with truly alien beings” (166).