About This Book

The beginning of the great project:

. . . "My dear colleagues," said Barbicane, without further preamble, "the problem now before us is how to communicate an initial force of 12,000 yards per second to a shell of 108 inches in diameter, weighing 20,000 pounds. Now when a projectile is launched into space, what happens to it? It is acted upon by three independent forces: the resistance of the air, the attraction of the earth, and the force of impulsion with which it is endowed. Let us examine these three forces. The resistance of the air is of little importance. The atmosphere of the earth does not exceed forty miles. Now, with the given rapidity, the projectile will have traversed this in five seconds, and the period is too brief for the resistance of the medium to be regarded otherwise than as insignificant. Proceding, then, to the attraction of the earth . . ."

This remarkable book accurately predicts that the USA will be the first to put a man on the moon. Whats more, in an uncanny parallel to reality, the astronauts are launched from the Florida coast!

How do they succeed? Need you ask?

About Jules Verne

(1828-1905) Born in Nantes, France, Verne's first training was as a lawyer, but he soon turned to adventure writing. His first success was Cinq semaines en ballon (Five Weeks in a Balloon), and thereafter, he produced a long series of marvelous tales at the rate of approximately one a year for the next 25 years. His most successful books include Journey to the Center of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Around the World in 80 days.

Before any writing was ever labeled "science fiction," there were flights of imagination — what the author himself called voyages imaginaires — that anticipated a thrilling future, based on scientific marvels yet to come. Jules Verne was a writer of such stories.