On Dec 5, 2020, at 12:02 PM, Phil Pugliese - philpugliese at yahoo.com <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote:

The way it appeared to me in '2001' & the way it was in the original 'Elite' game I played on my C64 was that the approaching 'ship matched rotation w/ the 'station, in which there was no "contra-rotating hob" to be seen (the 'station rotated as a single item, all together), & then, in 'Elite', your ship passed thru an opened portal into what must have been a vast 'hangar' area, while in '2001', as I recall, the 'ship just docked nose-first.

The docking scene is readily available on Youtube, and the Orion comes into a large hangar-like space in the hub. It’s remarkably similar to many such scenes in Star Wars.  The poster by Bob McCall shows it leaving the bay:

https://i.redd.it/1ej6nhijnz351.jpg

-- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs