From the Earth to the Moon

This article is about the Jules Verne novel. For the 1958 film adaptation, see From the Earth to the Moon (film). For the unrelated miniseries, see From the Earth to the Moon (miniseries).
From the Earth to the Moon

Cover of an early English translation
Author Jules Verne
Original title De la terre à la lune
Translator Anonymous (1867)
J. K. Hoyt (1869)
Louis Mercier & Eleanor Elizabeth King (1873)
Edward Roth (1874)
Thomas H. Linklater (1877)
I. O. Evans (1959)
Lowell Bair (1967)
Jacqueline and Robert Baldick (1970)
Harold Salemson (1970)
Walter James Miller (1996)
Frederick Paul Walter (2010)
Illustrator Henri de Montaut
Country France
Language French
Series Voyages Extraordinaires #4
Genre Science fiction
Publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel
Publication date
 1865
Published in English
 1867
Media type Print (Hardback)
Preceded by Journey to the Center of the Earth

From the Earth to the Moon (French: De la terre à la lune) is an 1865 novel by Jules Verne. It tells the story of the Baltimore Gun Club, a post-American Civil War society of weapons enthusiasts, and their attempts to build an enormous Columbiad space gun and launch three people—the Gun Club's president, his Philadelphian armor-making rival, and a French poet—in a projectile with the goal of a moon landing.

The story is also notable in that Verne attempted to do some rough calculations as to the requirements for the cannon and, considering the comparative lack of any data on the subject at the time, some of his figures are surprisingly close to reality. However, his scenario turned out to be impractical for safe manned space travel since a much longer muzzle would have been required to reach escape velocity while limiting acceleration to survivable limits for the passengers.

The character of Michel Ardan, the French member of the party in the novel, was inspired by the real-life photographer Félix Nadar.

Plot

The projectile, as pictured in an engraving from the 1872 Illustrated Edition.
The firing of the Columbiad.

The story opens some time after the end of the American Civil War. The Gun Club, a society based in Baltimore and dedicated to the design of weapons of all kinds (especially cannons), comes together when Impey Barbicane, its president, calls them to support his latest idea. He's done some calculations, and believes that they could construct a cannon capable of shooting a projectile to the moon. After receiving the support of his companions, another meeting is held to decide the place from which the projectile will be fired, the dimensions and materials of both the cannon and the projectile, and which kind of powder they are to use.

An old enemy of Barbicane, a Captain Nicholl of Philadelphia, designer of plate armor, declares that the enterprise is absurd and makes a series of bets with Barbicane, each of them of increasing amount, over the impossibility of such feat.

The first obstacle, the money to construct the cannon (and against which Nicholl has bet 1,000 dollars), is raised from a number of countries in America and Europe. Notably, the US gives four million dollars, while England does not give a farthing, but in the end, nearly five and a half million dollars are raised, which ensures the financial feasibility of the project.

Stone's Hill in "Tampa Town", Florida is chosen as the site for the cannon's construction, predating Kennedy Space Center's placement in Florida by almost 100 years. Verne gives the exact position as 27°7' northern latitude and 5°7' western longitude (of course relative to the meridian of Washington that is 27°7′0″N 82°9′0″W / 27.11667°N 82.15000°W / 27.11667; -82.15000[1]). The Gun Club travels there and starts the construction of the Columbiad cannon, which requires the excavation of a 900-foot-deep (270 m) and 60-foot-wide (18 m) circular hole, which is made in the nick of time, but a surprise awaits Barbicane: Michel Ardan, a French adventurer, plans to travel aboard the projectile.

During a meeting between Ardan, the Gun Club, and the inhabitants of Florida, Nicholl appears and challenges Barbicane to a duel. The duel is stopped when Ardan—having been warned by J. T. Maston, secretary of the Gun Club—meets the rivals in the forest where they have agreed to duel. Meanwhile, Barbicane finds the solution to the problem of surviving the incredible acceleration that the explosion would cause. Ardan suggests that Barbicane and Nicholl travel with him in the projectile, and the offer is accepted.

In the end, the projectile is successfully launched, but the destinies of the three astronauts are left inconclusive. The sequel, Around the Moon, deals with what happens to the three men in their travel from the earth to the moon.

Technical feasibility of a space cannon

In his 1903 publication on space travel, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky refuted Verne's idea of using a cannon for space travel. He concluded that a gun would have to be impossibly long. The gun in the story would subject the payload to about 22,000 g of acceleration (see formula). However, he was nevertheless inspired by the story and developed the theory of spaceflight.

Gerald Bull and the Project HARP proved after 1961 that a cannon can shoot a 180 kg (400 lb) projectile to an altitude of 180 kilometres (110 mi) and reach 32 percent of the needed escape velocity. Additionally, during the Plumbbob nuclear test series, a 900 kg (2,000 lb) capping plate made of steel was blasted away and never found. It has been speculated that the plate entered outer space because its speed was estimated to be between two and six times the escape velocity,[2] but engineers believe it melted in the atmosphere.[2]

Technological aspects of the novel

Jules Verne’s novel is a window to the knowledge of his time and his understanding of the technologies. It has several technical errors, which look unusual to the modern eyes, but reflect the knowledge of 1865-1870. Some of the issues are:

However, the novel also reports some state-of-the-art technologies and new knowledge of the time:

The novel was adapted as the opera Le voyage dans la lune in 1875, with music by Jacques Offenbach.

In H. G. Wells' 1901 novel The First Men in the Moon (also relating to the first voyagers to the Moon) the protagonist, Mr. Bedford, mentions Verne's novel to his companion, Professor Cavor, who replies (in a possible dig at Verne) that he does not know what Bedford is referring to. Verne returned the dig later when he pointed out that he used gun cotton to send his men to the moon, an actual substance. "Can Mr. Wells show me some 'cavourite'?", he asked archly.

The novel (along with Wells' The First Men in the Moon) inspired the first science fiction film, A Trip to the Moon, made in 1902 by Georges Méliès. In 1958, another film adaptation of this story was released, titled From the Earth to the Moon. It was one of the last films made under the RKO Pictures banner. The story also became the basis for the very loose adaptation Jules Verne's Rocket to the Moon (1967), a caper-style British comedy starring Burl Ives and Terry-Thomas. The 1961 Czechoslovak film The Fabulous Baron Munchausen combines characters and plot elements from the Verne novel with those of the stories of Baron Munchausen and Cyrano de Bergerac.


In 1889 Verne wrote a second sequel to the novel, The Purchase of the North Pole, which has the Gun Club members (led by J. T. Maston) plan to use the "Columbiad" to alter the tilt of the earth to enable the mineral wealth of the Arctic region to be put within reach of exploitation.

In March 1953, the Gilberton Company published a comic-book adaptation of From the Earth to the Moon as issue No. 105 in its Classics Illustrated series. An unidentified scriptwriter combined Verne's From the Earth to the Moon with the sequel, Around the Moon. Gilberton art director Alex A. Blum supplied both the cover painting and the 44 pages of interior art. The title went through twelve printings between 1953 and 1971.[3]

During their return journey from the moon, the crew of Apollo 11 made reference to Jules Verne's book during a TV broadcast on July 23.[4] The mission's commander, astronaut Neil Armstrong, said, "A hundred years ago, Jules Verne wrote a book about a voyage to the Moon. His spaceship, Columbia [sic], took off from Florida and landed in the Pacific Ocean after completing a trip to the Moon. It seems appropriate to us to share with you some of the reflections of the crew as the modern-day Columbia completes its rendezvous with the planet Earth and the same Pacific Ocean tomorrow."

In Back to the Future Part III, Clara Clayton asks Emmett Brown if he believes mankind will ever "travel to the moon the way we travel across the country on trains." Being from the future Doc already knows that doesn't happen for another 84 years, but he affirms they will while quoting a passage of From the Earth to the Moon. Clara calls him out on this, and it's from this encounter that the pair discovers their mutual love of Jules Verne novels.

The novel and its sequel were the inspiration for the 2005 point-and-click adventure computer game Voyage: Inspired by Jules Verne.

In the 2010 The Quantum Thief trilogy, the protagonist enters an uneasy alliance with the "Gun Club zoku", who specialize in military weaponry, and in The Causal Angel (2014) after escaping Earth using a nuclear powered space gun, sells the "Verne gun bullet" to them as a unique collectible item; author Hannu Rajaniemi is a fan of Verne.[5][6]

Disneyland Paris

The first incarnation of the roller coaster Space Mountain in Disneyland Paris, named Space Mountain: De la Terre à la Lune, was based loosely on this novel. The attraction opened in 1995. The attraction's exterior was designed using a Verne era retro-futuristic influence. Elements of the ambiance include rivet and boiler plate effect and the "Columbiad," which recoils with a bang and produces smoke as each car passes, giving riders the perception of being shot into space. During 2005, the ride was refurbished and renamed Space Mountain: Mission 2 as part of the Happiest Celebration on Earth. The ride no longer features elements of the original storyline from the novel.

In 1995 the BBC made a documentary about the creation of Space Mountain, called Shoot For The Moon. The 44-minute program followed Tim Delaney and his team in bringing the book From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne to life. The program shows the development of the attraction, from conception to construction to testing the final attraction. The documentary, originally broadcast on BBC Two in the United Kingdom, was also aired on other channels in many countries.

Project Epicus version

In 2013, a new film version of the story was announced, under the banner of Project Epicus[7]—a film project—with the full blessing of Jules Verne’s great-grandson Jean Verne and due for production in 2017.[8][9]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Earth to the Moon", Jules Verne, Page by Page books.
  2. 1 2 Brownlee, Robert R (June 2002), "Learning to Contain Underground Nuclear Explosions", USA tests, Nuclear weapon archive, retrieved 2006-07-31.
  3. ↑ Jones, William B Jr (2011), Classics Illustrated: A Cultural History (2 ed.), McFarland, p. 329.
  4. ↑ "History", JSC (PDF), US: Nasa.
  5. ↑ "Interview: Hannu Rajaniemi: SciFiNow sits down with a rising star of science fiction."
  6. ↑ "Once a physicist: Hannu Rajaniemi; Hannu Rajaniemi is an Edinburgh-based science-fiction writer whose first novel, The Quantum Thief, is published by Gollancz in paperback this month"
  7. ↑ Unknown. "Project Epicus website". Retrieved 23 September 2013.
  8. ↑ Project Epicus. "Youtube: Jean Verne Interview, Project Epicus". Retrieved 23 September 2013.
  9. ↑ Movie Prop Sites, LLC. "RPF From the Earth to the Moon". Retrieved 23 September 2013.
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