2001: A Space Odyssey Part 3, Chapter 15

Discovery

• Jump to a whole new section, and the novel has blessedly left the boring, boring Dr. Heywood behind. He is replaced with the only sort of boring David Bowman.
• To be fair, Bowman is not in any respect more developed or fleshed out or individual than Floyd. But Bowman has more to do than just stand there and gape at a slab.
• What he's got to do is get a spacecraft out all the way out to Saturn, helped by his trusty co-astronaut Frank Poole.
• Originally, they were supposed to go to Jupiter, but then the mission changed, and now they're going to sling around Jupiter and out to Saturn.
• The ship Discovery can't make it all the way back to Earth.
• But the astronauts will go into suspended animation for five years, while earth builds the Discovery II to come get them.
• If that all sounds dicey…well, yes. Foreshadowing.
• There are three members of the survey team already in hibernation.
• Nothing good will come of them.
• Blah, blah, blah—aren't technical details fascinating?
• Bowman remembers back to being tested in the hibernation chamber.
• Being frozen and then being woken up is really disorienting, as it turns out.