2001
In 2001: A Space Odyssey, Poole is an astronaut aboard the spaceship Discovery One on the first manned mission to Jupiter (Saturn in the novel). He and Dave Bowman are the only passengers who were not put on board in suspended animation (hibernation).
Poole and Bowman discuss disconnecting the higher functions of HAL 9000 ("HAL"), the Discovery One's mainframe computer, after it mistakenly predicts that the AE-35 unit (an electronic control unit in the spaceship's main antenna) is going to fail. They realize that HAL is capable of error, and they privately discuss (supposedly) disconnecting him. They believe themselves to be out of HAL's hearing range, but HAL, who can read lips, learns of their plans and resolves to get rid of the threat. Poole and Bowman had carelessly allowed themselves to be in view of one of HAL's monitoring cameras.
Shortly afterward, Poole begins replacing the AE-35 unit. In an act resembling human desperation, HAL rams Poole with one of the spaceship's EVA pods, severing his oxygen hose and sending Poole hurtling into outer space without his oxygen. Bowman, in a second pod, races from the Discovery One to retrieve Poole, but is unable to reach him before Poole runs out of oxygen. Bowman returns to the Discovery One with the body of Poole in the arms of the pod and attempts to gain access by requesting that HAL opens the pod bay doors. HAL refuses to let Bowman return to the Discovery One, uttering the crucial, defiant sentence, "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that." Bowman is forced to use the emergency airlock; this cannot be done with Poole still in the arms of the EVA pod as the arms must be used to manually open the airlock. Thus, Bowman abandons his colleague and in order to open the airlock lets go of Poole, sending his (supposed) corpse into the emptiness of outer space, but in the direction of a gravitational encounter with Jupiter.
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