This is classic Science Fiction written by Arthur C. Clarke. This story was made into the movie by Stanley Kubrick. This story was rare case, book and movie came out almost same time, actually movie appeared before the book.
This book was published July 1968. Apollo 11 landed on the moon in 1969. Imagine if we could landed on the moon in 1969, what would happen at 2001? People who live at that time think that 2001 should be more advance world than we are. We couldn’t go to Saturn or Jupiter in 2001, even in 2012. However, the story was well prepared and tried to be realistic and plausible based on scientific fact.
Sometime in the future, there was the basement on the moon. The geologists found the strong magnetic anomaly on the on the moon. They dogged that place, then they found TMA-1 which was made just when human being was born which had been 3 million years ago. TMA-1 was a like signal to notify that the human being reached the moon. The destination of signal was Jupiter. So human being knew they are not alone. But, the others would be us or them?
To survey the others, human being launch the space ship to get to Jupiter.
Human being sent 5 people. 3 were sleeping during journey. 2 were operating for space ship. During the journey, unexpected things happened. The supercomputer HAL killed the 4 people.(HAL was derived from IBM by displacing one letter.) Why? You should read book to know in detail, but in short, HAL was smart enough to confuse between his enthusiasm for mission and actually being taught (programmed). Unfortunately, HAL decided to kill the people on board to reach his goal. Only one man Bowman survived. Interestingly, this book was carefully described the future. But, there was no concept about internet or networking. HAL was super smart but was alone not connected, which is unlike our world.
But finally, Bowman could get to Jupiter What did he face? Did he become first man to meet the others? What were they like? What would happen to him?
I like this phrase form preface of this book.
But please remember: this is only a work of fiction. The truth, as always, will be far stranger.
Clarke, Arthur C. (2012-12-10). 2001: A Space Odyssey (Arthur C. Clarke Collection: The Odyssey) . RosettaBooks. Kindle Edition.