Aries-1B lunar carrier

The Aries-1B lunar carrier was a fictional spacecraft featured in the "Space Odyssey" mythos. It first appeared in the 1968 science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey directed by Stanley Kubrick. It also appeared in the 2001: A Space Odyssey novel, written by Arthur C. Clarke, and published to coincide with the release of the film.

Description
The Aries-1B was a lunar carrier stationed aboard the orbital platform Space Station One. It was designed to ferry passengers for short passages between the station and Earth's moon. The carrier's thrust capacity enabled the ship to make the journey from the station to the moon in less than twenty-five hours. The shuttle did not possess artificial gravity, so measures had to be taken to keep passengers and belongings well-secured in the zero-g environment.

In the year 2000, the Aries-1B left Space Station One for the moon with only passenger, Doctor Heywood R. Floyd. As chairman of the National Council of Astronautics, he had been assigned to a top secret mission involving the discovery of an alien artifact found at the center of Clavius Crater in the Southern Highlands region of the moon.