From Wohnrad to Space Station V: How Herman Potočnik Designed the Future of 2001: A Space Odyssey

by Liz Publika

The "Bone to Satellite" sequence from the 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) directed by Stanley Kubrick (who co-wrote the screenplay with Arthur C. Clarke) is indisputably one of the most iconic and influential spacecraft scenes in film history.

One reason is that it establishes the visual connection between primitive tool use and advanced space travel, bridging millions of years of human history through a technological lens with some ambiance-setting classical music. But, more importantly, it serves as an homage to the first person to conceive the design for a space station.

Hermann Noordung's depiction of a space station habitat wheel published in The Problem of Space Travel (1929). Power was generated by collecting sunlight through the concave mirror in the center. This was one of three components of Noordung's space station. The other two were the observatory and the machine room, each connected to the habitat by an umbilical.

The spacecraft immortalized in the groundbreaking motion picture is based on the work of Herman Potočnik (1892-1929). Known by his pseudonym "Noordung," Potočnik was a young engineer who had seriously devoted himself to the technical problems of rocket science and space technology long before the possibility of space travel was on the horizon.

His designs fused early 20th-century ballistics and modern space architecture and served as visual inspiration for Kubrick's sci fi masterpiece. But it also gave us a way to endure among the stars, indefinitely.

The Engineering of the "Wohnrad"

Born in Pola, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Potočnik initially served as an army captain. However, his military career was cut short in 1919 due to tuberculosis that he contracted during the First World War, forcing a retirement that led him to pursue a doctorate in engineering at Vienna's University of Technology.

Description of a space station in Hermann Noordung's The Problem of Space Travel (1929). (Legend: Achs-Körper: axle body. Aufzugschacht: elevator shaft. Treppenschacht: stairwell. Verdampfungsrohr: boiler pipe).

By 1925, he had devoted himself entirely to the technical problems of rocket science and space technology. Potočnik's primary contribution to STEM and astronautics was detailed in his 1929 book, The Problem of Space Travel – The Rocket Motor. The centerpiece of this 188-page work was the Wohnrad (habitat wheel), a revolutionary design for a permanent, habitable orbital station.

The engineering behind the Wohnrad addressed the most significant hurdle of long-term space habitation: the lack of gravity. Potočnik proposed a wheel-shaped station approximately 30 meters ( or 32.81 yards) in diameter. By rotating the station around its axis, he intended to use centrifugal force to create Earth-like artificial gravity, allowing inhabitants to function normally in a space environment.

This design was a complex system that integrated:

• Living Quarters and Laboratories: Located within the outer rim to maximize the gravitational effect.

• Observation Posts: Designed for civilian and military Earth observation.

• Microgravity Research: Utilizing the station's unique position to study physical phenomena unattainable on Earth.

Potočnik's work is now regarded as the first true "space architecture" because he meticulously planned for human physiological needs and the mechanical requirements of a continuous human presence in orbit.

Transition to Visual Culture and Film

Potočnik died in August 1929 at age 36, just as his ideas began to circulate among the German and Russian rocketry communities. His influence reached Wernher von Braun, who cited Potočnik in his doctoral dissertation and expanded on the habitat-wheel concept for his own rotating station proposals in the 1950s.

This Hermann Noordung image, published in The Problem of Space Travel (1929), depicts a three-unit space station as seen from a spaceship. The three units were the habitat, the machine room, and the observatory, each connected by an umbilical. The Earth is in the background, approximately 26,000 miles away. The station in this image is roughly above Cameroon's southern tip, in a geosynchronous orbit on the median of Berlin.

This lineage from engineering study to technical illustration eventually reached Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke. In the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, Space Station V serves as the cinematic successor to the Wohnrad. The film's rotating station follows the exact design logic Potočnik established: a wheel-shaped structure spinning to provide gravity for passengers, complete with observation decks and labs.

Today, Potočnik is celebrated as the "father of space station design." His 1929 blueprints not only informed real-world aerospace engineering but also created the visual language for how we imagine life in space.

Note* All images are available via Fair Use and the Public Domain.