Chapter 4-8 Summary

Captain Norton, the commander of the space vessel Endeavour, does not know what to expect when he lands on Rama. The sheer size and weight of the unknown space object, estimated at 10 trillion tons, makes his enterprise both inspiring and terrifying. His spaceship was the only vessel in the galaxy located close enough to Rama to enable such an interception course with its trajectory. In order to reach the alien object, he had to borrow fuel from three other space vessels. The spaceship hovers a thousand meters over the northern extremity of Rama while Lieutenant Joe Calvert prepares for landing. The landing site has to be near the pole to avoid the centrifuge effect of the fast spinning cylinder, yet away from the central disc that he imagines serves as a door for Rama's inhabitants. A few minutes later, the spaceship...