"My God, It's Full of Stars!" Trivia Quiz

Answer: Pan American

Pan American, colloquially known as Pan Am, was, for much of the 20th century, the United States' largest international airline, and assumed as position as the country's unofficial flag carrier. Founded in 1927, the airline was operating a fleet of 150 aircraft to 86 different countries by 1968, the year that "2001: A Space Odyssey" was released. At the time, Pan Am had even started taking bookings for passenger flights to the Moon, which chimed with the ideas that director Stanley Kubrick had in his vision of what the world would be like in 2001. However, Pan Am was forced to file for bankruptcy in January 1991, and eventually ceased operations in December the same year.

In "2001: A Space Odyssey", Dr Heywood Floyd is the only passenger on a Pan Am Orion III spaceplane that is used to make the flight between Earth and the orbiting Space Station V, which is the stopover point for flights to the Moon.

Answer: Leonard Rossiter

Although Leonard Rossiter's career began in repertory theatre, as was the case with many of his contemporaries, he rapidly established himself as a character actor on screen, making a number of appearances in different films and television shows during the 1960s, before winning the role for which he probably was most famous, that of the lecherous landlord Rigsby in the sitcom "Rising Damp" on ITV, which he had established in the stage play "The Banana Box". While starring in "Rising Damp", Rossiter was also appearing as the title character in the equally successful sitcom "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin" for the BBC.

Rossiter appeared in one of the few speaking parts in "2001: A Space Odyssey", that of Andrei Smyslov, one of the Soviet scientists returning to Earth from Tchalinko Base on the Moon. It is Smyslov who gently tries to probe and coax an explanation from Floyd as to what the situation is at the American's Clavius Base that has led to it seemingly being put under quarantine.

Answer: Clavius

Clavius is a large crater located in the Moon's southern highlands, due south of the much younger crater Tycho. Believed to be the result of an impact during the Nectarine Period, Clavius is one of the Moon's older formations, and is the second largest crater visible on the near side, with a diameter of 231km and a depth of around 3.5km. On the crater's floor are a number of smaller impact craters that move anticlockwise according to size, and which, thanks to their formation of larger to smaller, are often used by amateur astronomers to test the resolution of their telescopes. Clavius was named for Christopher Clavius, a Jesuit priest and mathematician who produced one of the 16th century's most widely accepted astronomy texts.

In the film, the American research base at Clavius is the main United States presence on the Moon. One of the largest permanent lunar bases, although it has a significant number of structures on the surface, the majority of it is built underground. The proximity of Clavius to Tycho makes it relatively easy for the Americans to study the strange object that has been excavated at the latter, which is obviously of extraterrestrial origin.

Answer: Urbana

Urbana is the seat of Champaign County in Illinois. Originally settled by Europeans in 1822, it was originally called Big Grove. The name Urbana was adopted in 1833, when Champaign County was organised - the name came from Urbana, Ohio, the home town of John Vance, the state senator who wrote the Enabling Act that created the county. In 1854, a new town, West Urbana, was developed around the newly built rail depot of the Illinois Central Railroad; the town was renamed Champaign in 1861, and together the two formed the Champaign-Urbana urban area, which, in 1868, became the home of a new state agricultural college that evolved into the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the flagship institution of the University of Illinois system.

In "2001: A Space Odyssey", as a result of the computer's actions in killing Frank Poole and attempting to strand David Bowman in space, Bowman, having effected ingress back aboard the Discovery, proceeds to disconnect HAL's higher functions, which causes HAL to revert to earlier stages of development. Prior to the removal of the final modules, HAL begins reciting his first memory, which came following his activation at the facility in Urbana responsible for his construction, and includes him singing the song "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)".

Answer: Io

A Lagrange point is an area between two orbiting bodies where smaller objects can exist in a state of equilibrium, unaffected by the gravitational pull of either of the celestial bodies. As a result, locating an object at one of the Lagrange points means it will sit in a stable orbit without being pulled towards one or other of the orbiting bodies. A two body system has a total of five Lagrange points - L1 to L3 are in a line through the two bodies, while L4 and L5 sit perpendicular, forming the third line of a triangle connecting the points. The concept is named for Joseph-Louis Lagrange, the French astronomer who discovered the L4 and L5 points, a decade after the first three were discovered.

After HAL's disconnection, Discovery finally arrives at Jupiter to discover the two kilometer long monolith that was the target of a signal sent by the first monolith on the Moon. The big monolith is sitting in orbit at one of the Lagrange points between Jupiter and Io, the closest of the planet's four Galilean moons. Bowman leaves Discovery and approaches the monolith, which turns into a gateway, pulling Bowman into an interstellar journey and leaving Discovery adrift in orbit of Io.

Answer: Gherman Titov

Gherman Titov was, in March 1960, a member of the first group of 20 cosmonauts to be selected by the Soviet Union for their manned space program. In August 1961, four months after the flight of his countryman Yuri Gagarin, Titov was launched in Vostok 2, which became the first manned space mission to last more than a day. Titov completed a total of 17 orbits during the flight, which lasted just over 25 hours, becoming the first person to both sleep and suffer from space sickness while in orbit. Although Vostok 2 was Titov's only space flight, he undertook a number of positions in the Soviet space program until his retirement in 1992.

In "2010: The Year We Make Contact", Heywood Floyd is offered a place on the Soviet mission to Jupiter that will reach the planet almost a year before the United States can get there with their Discovery 2 mission. Upon being told by Dimitri Moisevich that the ship is named the Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, Floyd expresses surprise, as he believed it was to be named the Gherman Titov, to which it is explained that occasionally people fall out of favour in the Soviet Union.

Answer: SAL 9000

The SAL 9000 computer is built as an Earth-bound counterpart to the HAL 9000 computer aboard the Discovery, which is used during the Discovery mission to provide simulation data for the crew aboard the ship to undertake actual tasks during the flight that require the computer. One of these during the mission is to check HAL's reporting of the failure of the Discovery's main communications antenna; the error reported following the simulation using SAL indicates that there is a problem with HAL. With the Soviet mission to Jupiter allowing an opportunity to find out why HAL malfunctioned, SAL is used to simulate the procedures required to reactivate the shipboard computer, as well as to determine if there would be any damage following his deactivation.

SAL appears in a single scene in "2010: The Year We Make Contact", alongside Bob Balaban as Dr Chandra, the creator of both computers. SAL appears as a single terminal with a blue optic lens and female voice, as opposed to HAL's red lens and male voice. SAL was voiced by actress Candice Bergen, who was credited in the film as "Olga Mallsnerd".

Answer: Maxim Brailkovsky

Maxim Brailkovsky, played by Elya Baskin, is possibly the most gregarious and outgoing of the crew members of the Alexei Leonov during the Jupiter mission, and builds a strong relationship with Walter Curnow, stemming from their hazardous EVA to gain control of and reactivate the Discovery. Together, the pair are able to reactivate the American spacecraft and bring it under control from its unstable orbit (which would eventually have led to it crashing onto the surface of Io), allowing Dr Chandra to then come aboard and begin the process of reactivating HAL. Subsequently, Max is despatched to investigate the monolith in a one-man pod, and disappears when the stargate reopens to allow the creature that was David Bowman to return to Earth.

Max's fate in the film is different from the original novel, "2010: Odyssey Two", as it is an unmanned pod sent out to investigate the monolith; instead, Max survives to return to Earth with the rest of the crew of the Leonov.

Answer: TIME

"TIME" (spelt in all caps) is a news magazine published in New York City. Originally founded in March 1923 as a weekly publication, in March 2020 it transitioned to fortnightly. Its founders, Britton Hadden and Henry Luce, sought to produce a periodical that could simultaneously bring people the latest news, but in a format that could be read quickly. "TIME", throughout its history, has also attempted to bring fun to the news, and so has placed an equal degree of emphasis on culture and celebrity as it has to hard news. One of "TIME's" most popular features is its annual "Person of the Year", where the person that has had the biggest impact on the news over the year, "for good or ill", is recognised. Since the foundation of "TIME", 14 US presidents and four leaders of the Soviet Union have been named as Person of the Year.

Part of the sub-plot of "2010: The Year We Make Contact" sees the United States and Soviet Union on the brink of war. A copy of "TIME", being read by the duty nurse watching over David Bowman's mother, is seen featuring images of the President of the United States and Premier of the Soviet Union - the images are in fact of Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick respectively.

Answer: Europa

Europa is one of the four moons of Jupiter discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei, which came to be known as the Galilean moons. Of the four, Europa is the smallest, and orbits closer than all but Io. Europa has an exceptionally smooth surface that is formed primarily by a thick crust of ice, under which is believed to be a vast liquid water ocean. This is theorised to be possible not as a result of energy from the Sun, which is too far away, while Europa's atmosphere is too tenuous to retain heat. Instead, the heat to allow a liquid ocean is theorised to be due to the tidal forces exerted on Europa by Jupiter itself. The potential presence of liquid water has also led to theories that Europa could harbour life.

As it approaches Jupiter In "2010: The Year We Make Contact", the Alexei Leonov performs a flyby of Europa. Its scans suggest the presence of something organic on the surface, as it is both moving and appears to have chlorophyll. The presence of life on Europa is seemingly confirmed by the message HAL transmits prior to the destruction of the Discovery in the creation of the new star from Jupiter, which allows the use of Jupiter's other moons, but warns humanity not to attempt any landing on Europa. The final shot of the film shows a tropical landscape on Europa, warmed by the new star, and guarded by a monolith.