The Moon [antikvár]

IntroductionI must repeat that the distance between the Earth and its satellite is really not very great and hardly worthy of concern to serious minds. I therefore believe it is not too bold of me to predict that there will soon exist a series of projectiles providing comfortable transportation between the Earth and the Moon. There will he no risk of shocks, jolts, or derailing, and we will reach our destination rapidly, directly, and without fatigue. . . . Twenty years from now, half the population of the Earth will have visited the Moon!Jules \'erne, From the Earth to the MoonThis optimistic statement was made by a character in the novel, one of the three passengers in the "bullet train" that undertook the first voyage to the Moon-only to miss its mark and end up as a lunar satellite. When his book was published in 1865, such a voyage was utter fantasy. Even picture-book hero Tintin, who dreamed of traveling to the Moon in Objective Moon and actually did so in They JT'alked on the Moon, was still some fifteen years ahead of history. The fact is that the idea of going to the Moon has always fascinated the human animal. As early as the second century, the Greek poet Lucianus of