The dark port in the white pod body is very eye-ballish. Similar also is the deep socket of Discovery's bridge. Similar blind slits are in the Orion moon shuttle and lunar surface flyer. It should be noted that eye-like spheres will abound in space as natural and artificial orbs. Space habitats will often resemble cyclopean caves, for pressurization, shielding, economics.
Necessity becomes thematic by usage.
Odysseus blinds the cyclops. Bowman loses his helmet to see the real dangers and wonders of his world. The angular space helmets depart from more functional designs with their wraparound visors. They echo the Panavision screen the film was projected on. Continual revisiting of the eye metaphor in sf and other films suggests some influence has been felt from 2001 .