From the Earth to the Moon
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From the Earth to the Moon (thing)
From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne is one of the most important works of science fiction of all time. As most of Verne's works, it was almost preternaturally prescient in its predictions of future events and technologies, though Verne of course could only extrapolate from what he knew. As expected the book is mostly rigorous in its scientific detail and many of the key elements, like the calculations for the escape velocity to allow a rocket to leave the bounds of Earth's gravity were spot on, others include:
- The number of astronauts in the circumlunar vehicle - Three.
- Weightlessness - Verne predicted it only occurring at the Lagrangian point.
- The United States would be the first to the moon, though Verne has a Frenchman be the first to volunteer to go.
- Florida and Texas would fight to be the launch site. In Verne's fiction as well as in real life, access to the sea and political considerations would color the site selection. In real life, the Congress compromised and created Cape Canaveral now the Kennedy Space Center and the Mission Control Center now the Johnson Space center in Houston.
- Retro-rockets would be used to insert into and leave orbit.
- The capsule would return and splash down in the Pacific Ocean.
- A telescope of high resolution would be able to chart the progress of the spaceship. When Apollo 13 exploded a telescope at the Johnson Space Center witnessed the event.
- The cost of the program would be $5,446,675 US dollars in 1865 (equivalent to $ 12.112 billion US dollars in 1969; Apollo cost $ 14.405 billion dollars up to the Apollo 8 circumnavigation mission).
- The circumlunar spacecraft would be built predominately of aluminium and have a mass of 19,250 pounds (empty mass of the predominately aluminum Apollo 8 circumlunar spacecraft was 26,275 pounds).
- The cannon used to launch the spacecraft was called a Columbiad. The Apollo 11 command module was named Columbia.
The book was first published in French in two volumes: volume 1 De la terre à la lune from 1865 and volume 2, Autour de la lune from 1870. It is mostly lighthearted in tone, almost modern in its fast pacing and very funny at times. I used the edition that resides at Project Gutenberg as a source. If any of you have information on what translation was used, please /msg me.
From the Earth to the Moon
- Table of Contents
- Chapter I: The Gun Club
- Chapter II: President Barbicane's Communication
- Chapter III: Effect of the President's Communication
- Chapter IV: Reply From the Observatory of Cambridge
- Chapter V: The Romance of the Moon
- Chapter VI: The Permissive Limits of Ignorance and Belief in the United States
- Chapter VII: The Hymn of the Cannon-Ball
- Chapter VIII: History of the Cannon
- Chapter IX: The Question of the Powders
- Chapter X: One Enemy V. Twenty-Five Millions of Friends
- Chapter XI: Florida and Texas
- Chapter XII: Urbi et Orbi
- Chapter XIII: Stones Hill
- Chapter XIV: Pickaxe and Trowel
- Chapter XV: The Fete of the Casting
- Chapter XVI: The Columbiad
- Chapter XVII: A Telegraphic Dispatch
- Chapter XVIII: The Passenger of the Atlanta
- Chapter XIX: A Monster Meeting
- Chapter XX: Attack and Riposte
- Chapter XXI: How A Frenchman Manages An Affair
- Chapter XXII: The New Citizen of the United States
- Chapter XXIII: The Projectile-Vehicle
- Chapter XXIV: The Telescope of the Rocky Mountains
- Chapter XXV: Final Details
- Chapter XXVI: Fire!
- Chapter XXVII: Foul Weather
- Chapter XXVIII: A New Star
Round the Moon
- Preliminary Chapter-- Recapitulating the First Part of This Work, and Serving as a Preface to the Second
- Chapter I : From Twenty Minutes Past Ten to Forty-Seven Minutes Past Ten P. M.
- Chapter II : The First Half Hour
- Chapter III : Their Place of Shelter
- Chapter IV : A Little Algebra
- Chapter V : The Cold of Space
- Chapter VI : Question and Answer
- Chapter VII : A Moment of Intoxication
- Chapter VIII : At Seventy-Eight Thousand Five Hundred and Fourteen Leagues
- Chapter IX : The Consequences of A Deviation
- Chapter X : The Observers of the Moon
- Chapter XI : Fancy and Reality
- Chapter XII : Orographic Details
- Chapter XIII : Lunar Landscapes
- Chapter XIV : The Night of Three Hundred and Fifty-Four Hours and A Half
- Chapter XV : Hyperbola or Parabola
- Chapter XVI : The Southern Hemisphere
- Chapter XVII : Tycho
- Chapter XVIII : Grave Questions
- Chapter XIX : A Struggle Against the Impossible
- Chapter XX : The Soundings of the Susquehanna
- Chapter XXI : J. T. Maston Recalled
- Chapter XXII : Recovered From the Sea
- Chapter XXIII : The End
Sign in
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