{"id":8902,"date":"2019-06-16T14:39:35","date_gmt":"2019-06-16T18:39:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/?p=8902"},"modified":"2019-06-16T14:39:35","modified_gmt":"2019-06-16T18:39:35","slug":"lunar-tales-the-first-imaginative-moon-landings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/?p=8902","title":{"rendered":"Lunar tales: The first (imaginative) Moon landings"},"content":{"rendered":"
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From the Astronomy Magazine website:<\/h5>\n

The First (imaginative) Moon Landings<\/h3>\n

\u00a0Although humans didn’t really reach the Moon until a half century ago, we’ve ventured there in our minds for millennia.<\/h5>\n
By Joel Davis<\/a> \u00a0|\u00a0 Published: Friday, June 7, 2019<\/div>\n

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RELATED TOPICS: APOLLO<\/a> | THE MOON<\/a><\/div>\n
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\"Atriptothemoon\"<\/a><\/div>\n
This iconic shot from the 1902 film A Trip to the Moon<\/em> shows the fabled Man in the Moon embedded with a massive, bullet-like spacecraft that was launched from Earth by a giant cannon.<\/div>\n
drmvm1\/Flickr<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
It\u2019s been 50 years since humans first landed on the Moon. But for how long have we rehearsed those first steps in our imaginations? This we do know: We\u2019ve been telling each other tales about our Moon-landing dreams for nearly 2,000 years.<\/div>\n
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\"ATrueStory\"<\/a><\/div>\n
Nearly 2,000 years ago, Lucian of Samosata wrote a tale about a boat that was blasted all the way to the Moon by a powerful waterspout.<\/div>\n
Ruth Cobb from Chatterbox Children\u2019s Annual, 1926 (Image from Lady Meerkat)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The earliest known written story about people traveling to the Moon was by Lucian of Samosata, a Syrian-Greek writer born around 125 AD. His travels throughout the Mediterranean world were the basis for the fictional tales in his True Stories<\/em>, an often bawdy satire of Homer\u2019s revered epic the Odyssey<\/em>.<\/p>\n

One such story tells of the journey Lucian and 50 companions take on a boat carried to the Moon by a giant waterspout. When they arrive on the lunar surface, they\u2019re greeted by a race of three-headed vultures and soon find themselves in the middle of a war with another species. Eventually they make their way back to Earth and experience more fantastic adventures. Lucian\u2019s lunar tale is the earliest known piece of fiction that depicts space travel, a Moon landing, aliens, and<\/em> interplanetary war.
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Some 15 centuries later, three people changed our view of our place in the universe forever. Nicolas Copernicus published his heliocentric theory of the universe, which replaced the Earth with the Sun at the center of the solar system; Galileo Galilei spotted sunspots, the phases of Venus, and moons circling Jupiter; and Johannes Kepler showed us that the planets circle the Sun in ellipses.<\/p>\n

But Kepler also wrote a novel about landing on the Moon. Entitled Somnium<\/em> (A Dream<\/em>), he began writing it when he was still a teenager. Although it took him about two decades to complete, he eventually finished it in 1608. However, it wasn\u2019t published until 1634 \u2014 four years after his death.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Keplersomnium\"<\/a><\/div>\n
The title page from a reproduction of Kepler’s Somnium (A Dream).<\/em><\/div>\n
Wikimedia Commons<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The story is framed as Kepler\u2019s dream. The main character, the young son of an Icelandic woman who might be a witch, is fascinated by astronomy and serves as a stand-in for Kepler himself. Much of the book is a riveting (and in some ways accurate) account of the boy\u2019s journey through space to the Moon, including whom he encounters and what he observes.<\/p>\n

In the tale, there exists an omnipresent aether that fills the void between Earth and the Moon. It’s very cold, so humans must rely on summoned demons to keep them warm. The human travelers must also plug their noses with damp sponges to help them breathe. The trip is so stressful that they must be put in suspended animation. Kepler\u2019s descriptions of how the Earth would look from the Moon are surprisingly accurate, even by today\u2019s standards. Overall, the science in Somnium<\/em> is remarkable for its time.<\/p>\n

Most subsequent stories about lunar journeys were satires, like George Tucker\u2019s 1827 work: A Voyage to the Moon<\/em>. But writers also began treating tales of lunar voyages a bit more seriously. Edgar Allan Poe\u2019s 1835 story, “The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall,” was a mix of satire and serious speculative fiction. The imaginative breakthrough came three decades later from the pen of French writer Jules Verne: From the Earth to the Moon<\/em> (1865), followed by Around the Moon <\/em>(1870).<\/p>\n

In Verne’s work, members of the post-Civil War Baltimore Gun Club use an arguably scientific method \u2014 a giant cannon \u2014 to shoot their travelers around the Moon. But they don\u2019t land. Instead, they experience a series of misadventures while in orbit around the Moon before eventually making their way back to Earth.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the two protagonists of H.G. Wells\u2019 1901 novel The First Men in the Moon<\/em> use a \u201chand-waving science\u201d method of travel. But they actually land on the Moon, explore it, and return. In the story, an eccentric physicist named Cavor plans to land on the Moon in a ship of his own design powered by a metal he invented with antigravity properties called \u201ccavorite.\u201d After enlisting the reluctant help of an English businessman named Bedford, they build a steel sphere with glass windows and sliding cavorite shutters. Sliding these open and closed allows them to \u201csteer\u201d the ship to the Moon.<\/p>\n

Off they go, weightlessness on the way. They land safely on the Moon (which has a breathable atmosphere) and explore its surface. They then drunkenly enter the Moon\u2019s underground caverns, where they are promptly captured by insectoid extraterrestrials called Selenites. After more harrowing experiences, the two men escape and make their way back to the lunar surface. They split up, looking for their ship, but Cavor is injured. Bedford reluctantly leaves the Moon, alone. Later, home and safe, Bedford learns that scientists are receiving radio transmissions from Cavor, who is still alive and still trapped in the Moon.<\/p>\n

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For nearly two millennia, storytellers have devised some ingenious methods to get their characters to the Moon. Here are just a few highlights:<\/em><\/strong>
\n\u2022 Giant waterspout: True History, Lucian of Samosata, ca. 2nd century AD<\/em><\/strong>
\n\u2022 A \u201cshadow bridge\u201d: Somnium, Johannes Kepler, 1634<\/em><\/strong>
\n\u2022 Multi-stage rocket*: Histoire Comique de la Lune, Cyrano de Bergerac, 1657<\/em><\/strong>
\n\u2022 Lunarium**: A Voyage to the Moon, George Tucker, 1827<\/em><\/strong>
\n\u2022 Balloon: \u201cThe Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfall,\u201d Edgar Allan Poe, 1835<\/em><\/strong>
\n\u2022 Giant Cannon: From the Earth to the Moon, Jules Verne, 1865<\/em><\/strong>
\n\u2022 Antigravity metal: First Men in the Moon, H.G. Wells, 1901<\/em><\/strong>
\n*This is the first mention of a multi-stage rocket in literature.<\/em><\/strong>
\n**A metal that is only partially antigravitational: it is repelled by the Earth but attracted by the Moon.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Approaching the Apollo era<\/h4>\n

Films had been around in one form or another since the 1880s, but public screenings where people paid admission fees first started in 1895. In 1902, French filmmaker Georges M\u00e9li\u00e8s made his landmark 21-minute film Le Voyage dans la Lune <\/em>(A Trip to the Moon<\/em>). In it, the spaceship is a bullet-like projectile a la Verne, but the plot is based on the Wells novel. Le Voyage dans la Lune<\/em> is often regarded as the first science-fiction film.<\/p>\n

By the 1920s, the art of filmmaking had advanced far beyond M\u00e9li\u00e8s. In 1929, Austrian director Fritz Lang released his follow-up to his futuristic flick Metropolis<\/em> (1927). Entitled Woman in the Moon<\/em>, it\u2019s about six people (five men and a women) who travel to the Moon in search of gold. The plotline and acting resemble a TV soap opera, and the Moon has normal gravity and a breathable atmosphere on its far side. But the special effects are remarkable. Especially impressive are the rocket launch and the scenes as the ship slips around behind the Moon.<\/div>\n

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\"Destinationmoonad\"<\/a><\/div>\n
A magazine advertisement for the 1950 movie Destination Moon.<\/em><\/div>\n
Rossano\/Flickr<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
From the 1930\u2019s through the end of World War II, sci-fi stories with lunar themes were mostly about exploration, aliens, and the Moon\u2019s desolate environment, not about first landings. That began to change at the end of the war. One story that stands out is the 1950 Robert A. Heinlein novella \u201cThe Man Who Sold the Moon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heinlein\u2019s tale is about a wealthy American businessman named D.D. Harriman who is obsessed with being the first man to set foot on the Moon. At a time when neither the technology nor public interest exists for a Moon landing, Harriman has the money, the PR savvy, and the con-man sensibilities to make it happen. And he does. The science is well-crafted, the characters are believable, and the ending? Ah, the ending. Harriman\u2019s billionaire buddy backers won\u2019t let him in the spaceship to become the first man to set foot on the Moon; he\u2019s too valuable as the front-man selling the dream of spaceflight-for-all back on Earth.<\/p>\n

Heinlein also played a role in another first Moon landing story. Except this one was a movie \u2014 and also a classic. Produced by George Pal and Irving Pichel, Destination Moon<\/em> was released in 1950. Heinlein was approached to help write the script. He drew in part on the plot of his juvenile novel Rocket Ship Galileo<\/em>, but he also clearly incorporated plot lines from \u201cThe Man Who Sold the Moon.\u201d<\/p>\n

The movie itself is a well-plotted, reasonably well-acted story of corporations rather than governments providing the money and know-how to put a man on the Moon. There\u2019s drama a-plenty, with dangerous situations solved by smart use of science and engineering. The movie accurately depicts weightlessness, the landing itself, and the lunar environment. The \u201ccold equations\u201d climax \u2014 where one of the crew must be left behind in order for the rest to make it home \u2014 is solved as only engineers could.<\/p>\n

Many more imagined Moon landings appeared in both print and film before those first \u201csmall steps\u201d in July 1969 turned imagination into reality. And they remain as reminders of how wide and deep we dream, and of how fierce our desire is to explore what waits out there beyond Earth’s thin atmosphere.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n