From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne
Verne's 1865 tale of a trip to the moon is great fun, even if bits of it now seem, in retrospect, a little strange. Our rocket ship gets shot out of a cannon? To the moon? Goodness! But in other ways it's full of eerie bits of business that turned out to be very near reality: he had the cost, when you adjust for inflation, almost exactly right. There are other similarities, too. Verne's cannon was named the Columbiad; the Apollo 11 command module was named Columbia. Apollo 11 had a three-person crew, just as Verne's did; and both blasted off from the American state of Florida. Even the return to earth happened in more-or-less the same place. Coincidence -- or fact!? We say you'll have to read this story yourself to judge.
Table of Content
Chapter 2. President Barbicane’s Communication
Chapter 3. Effect of the President’s Communication
Chapter 4. Reply from the Observatory of Cambridge
Chapter 5. The Romance of the Moon
Chapter 6. Permissive Limits of Ignorance and Belief in the United States
Chapter 7. The Hymn of the Cannon-Ball
Chapter 8. History of the Cannon
Chapter 9. The Question of the Powders
Chapter I0. One Enemy v. Twenty-Five Millions of Friends
Chapter 14. Pickaxe and Trowel
Chapter 15. The Fete of the Casting
Chapter 17. A Telegraphic Dispatch
Chapter 18. The Passenger of the Atlanta
Chapter 20. Attack and Riposte
Chapter 21. How a Frenchman Manages an Affair
Chapter 22. The New Citizen of the United States
Chapter 23. The Projectile-Vehicle