Clavius Base is a lunar settlement

Colonization of the Moon

The colonization of the Moon is the proposed establishment of permanent human communities on the Moon. Advocates of space exploration have seen settlement of the Moon as a logical step in the expansion of humanity beyond the Earth. Recent indication that water might be present in noteworthy...

 in the fictional Space Odyssey universe created by Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke

Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...

.

The base, located at Clavius crater, is featured in both the novel and film versions of 2001: A Space Odyssey. According to the novel, the base was finished in 1994 by United States Astronautical Engineering Corps. If necessary, the base can be self-sustaining.

As depicted on screen, Clavius Base features some surface features (a landing pad and control tower, together with other ancillary support structures), but the vast majority of the base is located beneath the Lunar surface to protect it from micro-meteoroid impacts and solar radiation. Incoming spacecraft set down on a landing platform beneath a dome which opens as the vessel descends. The landing platform is part of an enormous elevator, which lowers the spacecraft into a cavernous docking bay, illuminated in red.

Although not a reuse of the Clavius model, Moonbase Alpha

Moonbase Alpha

Moonbase Alpha is a fictional moon base and the main setting in the science fiction television series Space: 1999.-Moonbase Alpha:Located in the Moon crater Plato and constructed out of quarried rock and ores, Moonbase Alpha is four kilometres in diameter and extends up to one kilometre in areas...

 from the TV series Space: 1999

Space: 1999

Space: 1999 is a British science-fiction television series that ran for two seasons and originally aired from 1975 to 1977. In the opening episode, nuclear waste from Earth stored on the Moon's far side explodes in a catastrophic accident on 13 September 1999, knocking the Moon out of orbit and...

is designed using the same concept as Clavius. It is located in another crater, Plato.

Clavius Base is, apparently, the central focus of American activities on the Moon, and is under the control of the United States Astronautics Agency.

Events at Clavius Base

Clavius Base was placed under a quarantine

Quarantine

Quarantine is compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease. The word comes from the Italian quarantena, meaning forty-day period....

 with the cover story of an epidemic when the Tycho Magnetic Anomaly TMA-1 artifact was excavated. Dr. Heywood R. Floyd

Heywood R. Floyd

Dr. Heywood R. Floyd is a fictional character in the Space Odyssey series by Arthur C. Clarke. He is featured in 2001: A Space Odyssey and is the main protagonist in 2010: Odyssey Two and 2061: Odyssey Three. In the first movie he is portrayed by William Sylvester, in the second by Roy...

 traveled to the base to investigate the monolith about 18 months prior to the departure of the spacecraft Discovery

Discovery One

United States Spacecraft Discovery One is a fictional spacecraft appearing in The Space Odyssey series, including the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Discovery One is a large, nuclear-powered interplanetary spaceship.-History:...

on her mission to Jupiter

Jupiter

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...

 (in the novel, Saturn

Saturn

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn is named after the Roman god Saturn, equated to the Greek Cronus , the Babylonian Ninurta and the Hindu Shani. Saturn's astronomical symbol represents the Roman god's sickle.Saturn,...

).

While present at the base, Dr. Floyd met with American lunar officials and notified them that the government was requiring individual security oaths to be taken from each individual on the base.

Following his meeting with officials at Clavius, Floyd departed for the crater Tycho

Tycho (crater)

Tycho is a prominent lunar impact crater located in the southern lunar highlands, named after the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe . To the south is the crater Street; to the east is Pictet, and to the north-northeast is Sasserides. The surface around Tycho is replete with craters of various sizes,...

 on the Moonbus.

Strangely, there seems to be normal Earth gravity inside Clavius Base. No attempt is made to explain this in the film and it is probably an error.

Other uses

In Rainbow Mars

Rainbow Mars

Rainbow Mars is a science fiction short story collection by Larry Niven. It includes the five previously published Svetz stories and the novel, also called Rainbow Mars in which humans from Earth visit Mars and find it populated by the creations of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury, C. S. Lewis,...

, mention is made of a city in Clavius Crater, apparently a reference to Clavius Base from 2001.

There is a Clavius Base as well as a Pico Base on the Moon in Erich Dolezal's Mond in flammen, published in 1954.

Clavius Base is also the name of Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks

Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...

's film production company. To date, its productions are:

• From the Earth to the Moon 1998
• That Thing You Do!
  That Thing You Do!
  That Thing You Do! is a 1996 comedy-drama musical film written and directed by Tom Hanks. Set in the summer of 1964, the movie tells the story of the quick rise and fall of a one-hit wonder rock band...
  
  1996

Clavius Base is also the name of Creative and Art Director James H. Dargie's website www.claviusbase.com