Other editions of book From the Earth to the Moon Illustrated

Set at the end of the American Civil War, From the Earth to the Moon is a forward-looking tale of space adventure. With no other pressing assignments the Baltimore Gun Club, at the urging of its President, Impey Barbicane, decides to build a gun large enough to propel a projectile from the Earth to the Moon. With a wager being placed on the outcome and the mission being elevated to a "manned" mission, a space race to the Moon begins.

Set at the end of the American Civil War, From the Earth to the Moon is a forward-looking tale of space adventure. With no other pressing assignments the Baltimore Gun Club, at the urging of its President, Impey Barbicane, decides to build a gun large enough to propel a projectile from the Earth to the Moon. With a wager being placed on the outcome and the mission being elevated to a "manned" mission, a space race to the Moon begins.

How many things have been denied one day, only to become realities the next!Join the Baltimore Gun Club as it embarks on the most ambitious endeavor in all of human history — the construction of a cannon capable of delivering a projectile containing human payload to the Moon!With the help of the preeminent minds of the world, together they devise a plan that they will see through until they have succeeded!

Nearly a century before NASA, a visionary novelist wrote this adventure classic about an international space race. Jules Verne's eerily prophetic fantasy unfolds at the close of the American Civil War, as three artillerymen resolve to build a gun big enough to propel a manned rocket to the moon. Enlivened by broad satire, this rollicking tale recounts the launch of three astronauts from a Florida peninsula and their return to Earth in a splash landing.

Written almost a century before the daring flights of the astronauts, Jules Verne’s prophetic novel of man’s race to the stars is a classic adventure tale enlivened by broad satire and scientific acumen. When the members of the elite Baltimore Gun Club find themselves lacking any urgent assignments at the close of the Civil War, their president, Impey Barbicane, proposes that they build a gun big enough to launch a rocket to the moon. But when Barbicane’s adversary places a huge wager that the project will fail and a daring volunteer elevates the mission to a “manned” flight, one man’s dream turns into an international space race. A story of rip-roaring action, humor, and wild imagination, From the Earth to the Moon is as uncanny in its accuracy and as filled with authentic detail and startling immediacy as Verne’s timeless masterpieces 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days.

From the Earth to the Moon: A Direct Route in 97 Hours, 20 Minutes (French: De la Terre à la Lune, trajet direct en 97 heures 20 minutes) 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. Five years later, Verne wrote a sequel called Around the Moon.The story is also notable in that Verne attempted to do some rough calculations as to the requirements for the cannon and in that, considering the comparative lack of empirical data on the subject at the time, some of his figures are remarkably accurate. However, his scenario turned out to be impractical for safe manned space travel since a much longer barrel 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.The story opens some time after the end of the American Civil War. The Baltimore Gun Club, a society 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 entire 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 giant cannon (and against which Nicholl has bet 1,000 dollars), is raised from a number of countries in America and Europe. Notably, the U.S. 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. 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 proposition 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.

From the Earth to the Moon, published in 1865, was one of the first science fiction novels ever in print, but it is also one of the first ones with humor. The setting is Baltimore, Maryland and the Civil War has just ended. The Americans have developed interesting weaponry, including guns, and without a war to fight, they want to find something to do with their new technology – and they decide to form a Gun Club. The president is one Impey Barbicane, a cool customer of forty and a veteran on the Union side in the recent war between the States. Barbicane has come up with an idea – with their new technology and American know-how, surely they could launch a cannonball to the moon.This annotated edition includes a biography and critical essay.