Columbia42
Member
However, the mission was originally going to Jupiter and was diverted to Saturn. It could be that since there was no nessecity to land on Jupiter, the pods had no landing gear and Bowman planned to just hover over the monolith and not land. By this line of reasoning, I suggest that the pods be designed to go to Jupiter, (I don't know if they planned to land on one of Jupiter's moons) and not Saturn.