Stanley Kubrick on the set of 2001: A Space Odyssey. A giant centrifuge/Ferris wheel (seen here) was built for the set of the main compartment aboard the Discovery spacecraft. It was thirty-eight feet in diameter and about ten feet in width at the widest point. It rotated at a maximum speed of three miles per hour and had built into it desks, consoles, bunks for the astronauts and tomb-like containers for their hibernating companions. Kubrick monitored scenes shot inside of the centrifuge via closed-circuit television.