"Space Odyssey might fall into this too. It a science fiction series of novels and films created from 1953 to 1997"

Correct, but possibly misleading...:-)

Kubrick's film ("2001 - A Space Odyssey") was based on a short story by Arthur C Clarke ("The Sentinel"), written several years before the film. The short story ended with the discovery (and activation) of the 1st sentinel, on the moon.

IIRC, Clarke & Kubrick collaborated on the film and extended the original. The book of the film was later released by ACC. After that there were some (IMHO) not very good pot-boiler follow-ups.

The film was the biggest-grossing Sci-Fi film before Star Wars.

Nuff trivia - I suspect that the Discovery was probably the biggest pre-StarWars space ship in sheer overall size (even if most of it was made up of unexplained modules which mainly separated the living area from the engines). At least it wasn't stream-lined (no need for streamlining in space-craft...)

Cheers,
Diolma

(Who read the original before the film was released, and also saw the film during its release year, and was wowed. But that was then...)