Space flight to the moon
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First Men in the Moon, The
H. G. Wells' 1901 science fiction novel The First Men in the Moon tells the story of a voyage to the moon by Mr. Bedford, a businessman plagued by financial problems, and Dr. Cavor, a brilliant and somewhat eccentric scientist. On arrival they discover that the moon is already inhabited by an advanced underground civilization of insect-like beings who they call "Selenites". This forward-looking novel, critical of the imperialism of Wells' time, looks at the clash of civilizations and suggests a reflection of how humanity might develop in the future.
First on the Moon: New Special Edition
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From the Earth to the Moon; And, Round the Moon (Dodo Press)
Jules Gabriel Verne (1828-1905) was a French author who pioneered the science-fiction genre. He is best known for novels such as Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873). Verne wrote about space, air and underwater travel before air travel and practical submarines were invented, and before practical means of space travel had been devised. He is the third most translated author in the world, according to Index Translationum. Some of his books have been made into films. Verne, along with Hugo Gernsback and H. G. Wells, is often popularly referred to as the "Father of Science Fiction." Amongst his other works are From the Earth to the Moon (1867), Five Weeks in a Balloon (1869), The Fur Country; or, Seventy Degrees North Latitude (1873), The Blockade Runners (1874), The Field of Ice (1875), The Mysterious Island (1875), Facing the Flag (1879), and An Antarctic Mystery (1899).
From the Earth to the Moon: Direct in Ninety-Seven Hours and Twenty Minutes and a Trip Round It
During the War of the Rebellion, a new and influential club was established in the city of Baltimore in the State of Maryland. It is well known with what energy the taste for military matters became developed amongst that nation of ship-owners, shopkeepers, and mechanics. Simple tradesmen jumped their counters to become extemporized captains, colonels, and generals, without having ever passed the School of Instruction at West Point: nevertheless, they quickly rivalled their compeers of the old continent, and, like them, carried off victories by dint of lavish expenditure in ammunition, money, and men. But the point in which the Americans singularly distanced the Europeans was in the science of gunnery. Not, indeed, that their weapons retained a higher degree of perfection than theirs, but that they exhibited unheard-of dimensions, and consequently attained hitherto unheard-of ranges. In point of grazing, plunging, oblique, or enfilading, or point-blank firing, the English, French, and Prussians have nothing to learn; but their cannon, howitzers, and mortars are mere pocket-pistols compared with the formidable engines of the American artillery. This fact need surprise no one. The Yankees, the first mechanicians in the world, are engineers?just as the Italians are musicians and the Germans metaphysicians?by right of birth. Nothing is more natural, therefore, than to perceive them applying their audacious ingenuity to the science of gunnery. Witness the marvels of Parrott, Dahlgren, and Rodman. The Armstrong, Palliser, and Beaulieu guns were compelled to bow before their transatlantic rivals. Now when an American has an idea, he directly seeks a second American to share it. If there be three, they elect a president and two secretaries. Given four, they name a keeper of records, and the office is ready for work; five, they convene a general meeting, and the club is fully constituted. So things were managed in Baltimore. The inventor of a new cannon associated himself with the caster and the borer. Thus was formed the nucleus of the "Gun Club." In a single month after its formation it numbered 1833 effective members and 30,565 corresponding members. One condition was imposed as a sine qua non upon every candidate for admission into the association, and that was the condition of having designed, or (more or less) perfected a cannon; or, in default of a cannon, at least a firearm of some description. It may, however, be mentioned that mere inventions of revolvers, five-shooting carbines, and similar small arms, met with but little consideration. Artillerists always commanded the chief place of favour. The estimation in which these gentlemen were held, according to one of the most scientific exponents of the Gun Club, was "proportional to the masses of their guns, and in the direct ratio of the square of the distances attained by their projectiles." The Gun Club once founded, it is easy to conceive the result of the inventive genius of the Americans. Their military weapons attained colossal proportions, and their projectiles, exceeding the prescribed limits, unfortunately occasionally cut in two some unoffending pedestrians. These inventions, in fact, left far in the rear the timid instruments of European artillery.