The Underview on 2001 THE INTELLIGENT SPACE-HELMET

During Dave Bowman's first EVA, to replace the suspect AE35 unit, we see a close- up of him pressing a button on the sleeve- mounted control panel of his space suit. What is he doing? This conversation, filmed between Frederick I. Ordway III (Scientific Advisor) and Harry Lange (Production Designer) on the set of "2001: A Space Odyssey", may explain. Ordway: "Harry Lange, didn't you design a "memory" space helmet?" Lange: "Yes, this is the helmet that will be worn in the film..." Ordway: "What's the blue patch on the back?" Lange: "What, back here? These are memory packages, which can be inserted at will at the main station, which will supply the astronaut with additional information." Ordway: "You might tie in here, Harry, that the memory packs around the rear of the helmet are activated by an arm unit which has been developed for us with the assistance of IBM, and if certain types of information are required by the astronaut he will simply press the appropriate button and these will connect up with a typical computer console in the main ship."
	At left: the only original helmet still existing (unless anyone knows otherwise?) from the making of "2001: A Space Odyssey". Below: The quality and attention to detail suggest that this is a photograph taken at the time of another original 2001 helmet Below, left: A helmet made for the film "2010". Even from a photograph, the difference between this and the "real thing" is clear.
Below: Frank ready for business, showing the sleeve control panel used to activate the helmet memory packages. This is one of two shots in the film where the IBM logo appears (the other one? That would be telling...). The sleeve panel buttons in at least one version are labelled with such cryptic designations as "CM", "EMR" and "LT", but no doubt all of them were assigned "real" functions.
A video is available showing the exchange between Ordway and Lange. If details come to hand they will be added here. Thanks to Phil Rae for the pictures of the white and red (2010) helmets.
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