Dr. Chandra

Dr. Sivasubramanian Chandrasegarampillai (Dr. R. Chandra) is a fictional character in the Space Odyssey series written by Arthur C. Clarke.

He is mentioned in the novelization of A Space Odyssey as a scientist who instructed the villainous computer HAL 9000 in its basic functions (in the movie, it was a "Mr. Langley"). He is a main character in 2010: Odyssey Two as a member of the American expedition to Jupiter onboard the Soviet spacecraft Alexei Leonov. In the movie version of 2010, he was played by Bob Balaban.

Personal life

Template:Spoiler Chandra, a native of India, was an instructor of computer technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and was known to have one vice: smoking cheroots he had imported from his native India. He was also a practicing Hindu. When he received word of the malfunction of the HAL 9000 and HAL's subsequent disconnection at the hands of David Bowman, Chandra grew incredibly concerned; in the book version of 2010, he essentially considered HAL as a lost child.

Mission to Jupiter

Dr. Chandra accompanied Doctors Heywood Floyd and Walter Curnow in hibernation, as the American members of the crew of the Soviet spacecraft Alexei Leonov. The Leonov had been sent to Jupiter to not only explore the Jovian moon system, but also to determine the fate of the USSC Discovery and investigate the larger monolith discovered by its commander, David Bowman. Floyd had been brought out of hibernation first, then — as Leonov prepared to rendezvous with Discovery — Chandra and Curnow joined him. While Curnow, the engineer, was responsible for bringing the Discovery back online, Chandra's mission was to determine what caused HAL to malfunction and kill the crew. Once Curnow and his Russian counterpart, Maxim Brailovsky, managed to reactivate the power systems onboard the Discovery, Chandra got immediately to work, working on reactivating HAL. HAL had lost most of the memories of what had happened to the Discovery crew and Bowman and Frank Poole leaving the ship to replace the AE-35 communications unit, which HAL had (erroneously) declared as faulty. This was because Chandra had created a "tapeworm" program to hunt down and destroy the desired memories. It was revealed that HAL had been caught in a Hofstadter-Moebius loop, which according to Chandra was common in computers with autonomous goal-seeking programs.

Apparently, HAL was given conflicting orders in regard to the discovery of the Tycho crater monolith found on the Moon; Discovery's mission had already been in the advanced planning stage when it was located and sent its signal to Jupiter. By direct order of the President of the United States, the existence of the monolith was kept secret. The three specialists onboard the Discovery — Hunter, Kimball, and Kaminsky — had been trained separately and placed into hibernation until the ship arrived at Jupiter. HAL was told of the existence of the monolith, but was ordered to not reveal it to Bowman or Poole. In essence, he was told to lie. HAL was not programmed to distort or conceal information, so it caused him to become paranoid.

When David Bowman, in his new, seemingly-immortal form, told Floyd to leave (in the book, in fifteen days; in the movie, it was two days), Chandra — not all that surprisingly — protested, saying that HAL would most certainly question the change. He was told to make sure HAL kept going, knowing that HAL's trust in Dr. Chandra would allow him to complete the mission. The plan was to use Discovery as a booster for Leonov, abandon the American craft, and have both crews escape to Earth.

As the ships were preparing to depart, a large black spot was located on Jupiter, which was revealed to be several larger monoliths multiplying once every ten minutes. HAL tried to stop the countdown to examine the black spot; however, Chandra managed to convince him that the people on Leonov were in danger and had to return to Earth. HAL understood, and fired the Discovery's plasma drive at just the right time. Afterwards, Chandra returned to the Leonov, which then made its way back to Earth ... and Jupiter ignited behind them moments later. Discovery was incinerated by the shockwave, but not before HAL joined Bowman in the memory banks of the monolith; the Leonov, being further from the blast, managed to escape intact and return to Earth. Chandra, along with Floyd and Curnow, were placed in hibernation.

According to the third book, 2061: Odyssey Three, Dr. Chandra died sometime on the return trip. There was no medical explanation for this; he had apparently "lost the will to live", but Walter Curnow speculated that "he couldn't live without Hal." Whether this is true or not will never be known. Chandra's body was ejected from the Leonov somewhere near Mars, and eventually was consumed by the fires of the Sun. Template:Endspoiler