From the earth to the moon
From the earth to the moon is a novel by the French author Jules Verne . The novel was first published in 1865 under the French title De la Terre à la Lune by the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel . The first German-language edition appeared in 1873 under the title Von der Erde zum Mond . The English title of the novel is From the Earth to the Moon .
It is an early work of the science fiction genre that anticipates the moon voyage by about a hundred years. However, this is mainly about preparing for the adventure. The novel Reise um den Mond ( Autour de la Lune ) from 1870 continued the story.
action
The Gun Club in Baltimore was founded during the Civil War and has gun specialists among its ranks. Its chairman Barbicane and the secretary, the math genius James T. Maston, feel underutilized after the end of the civil war. You call a meeting to open up a new field of activity.
After proposals to start a new war in order to be able to use new weapons, an agreement was reached on the proposal to send a projectile from the earth to the moon with a cannon. The project is being prepared and is generating a great response in all parts of the world. Among other things, they are planning a grenade with a weight of 10,000 kg and a wall thickness of 60 cm made of aluminum. In addition, they agreed on a gun barrel 270 m long, 2.70 m inside diameter and a wall thickness of 1.80 m made of cast iron . Gun cotton is to be used as a propellant charge .
Captain Nicholl from Philadelphia , who as a designer of armor plates is a natural opponent of the cannon builder Barbicane, tries to discredit the project through a campaign in the press and offers Barbicane various bets on the failure of the project in a newspaper ad, which Barbicane accepts. The state of Florida is identified as a suitable location for the cannon , as it is relatively close to the equator . Countries from all parts of the world contribute to the costs of the project.
The cannon is poured into a mold specially built into the ground. 68,000,000 kg of gray cast iron have to be brought by ship from New York for the project. A new railway line for the trains with the material is being built to the place where the cannon was cast. A telegram from Paris arrives from Michel Ardan (a play on the name of Verne's artist friend Nadar ). In it, he demands that instead of a ball, a cylindrical-conical bullet should be cast in which he wants to fly as a passenger. He also announced that he would be arriving by steamship. Ardan finally arrives. Nicholl and Barbicane agree to a duel to resolve their differences. However, the two can be brought to their senses by the other. A test shot with two test animals is carried out. The squirrel is eaten by the tomcat; apart from that, however, this experiment is successful.
A device is devised with which the astronauts can reduce the acceleration during take-off by displacing water. Finally, the shooting is carried out with Barbicane, Nicholl and Ardan and two dogs as passengers. The firing of the cannon caused severe devastation in the area. The flight is observed with a telescope on Longs Peak in the Rocky Mountains in the U.S. state of Colorado . However, clouds prevent the view of the sky after being shot. After a week, sky observation is possible again. JM Belfast sees on Longs Peak that the missile has missed the moon and is circling the moon. He immediately sends this information on by telegram. JT Maston then goes to Longs Peak himself and seems to be the only one who does not want to admit the desperate situation.
background
Jules Verne predicted many details of the first real lunar voyage, even though the lunar travelers use the Columbiade , a huge cannon to drive space travel . The first trip to the moon is organized by a private organization, the fictional Baltimore Gun Club , an association of artillery experts .
The astronauts take off like NASA's Saturn V rockets in Florida and chemically renew the oxygen in the projectile by heating potassium chlorate . Brake rockets are installed on the projectile. However, the scenario described by Verne is impossible, since the detonation speed of the gun cotton used and thus the speed of the projectile is far lower than the escape speed . The projectile could not overcome the earth's gravity and would fall back to earth. Even with a better - hypothetical - explosive , the Columbiade would be practically not feasible due to its length if it were to carry such a large mass to the moon (if the crew were to be exposed to a maximum of twenty times the acceleration of gravity , the pipe would be over 300 kilometers long instead of the 270 meters mentioned in the book).
The work mainly deals with the preparations for the first trip to the moon. The focus is on the three future astronauts Impey Barbicane, Captain Nicholl and Michel Ardan and their friends Major Elphiston and JT Maston. The journey to the moon itself is described in the continuation Journey around the moon . The Baltimore Gun Club builds an even bigger cannon in the novel The Shot on Kilimanjaro .
In this novel, Jules Verne makes fun of the US Americans' cannon craze, which was apparently virulent even then . Characteristics of the French and other peoples are not spared from the author's wit.
Factory history
The preprint of De la Terre à la Lune. Trajet direct en 97 heures took place from September 14 to October 14, 1865 in the feature section of the Journal des Débats . The book edition was published by Pierre-Jules Hetzel on October 25, 1865 . On July 31, 1868 it followed under the title De la Terre à la Lune. Trajet direct en 97 heures 20 minutes an edition illustrated with 41 engravings by François Pannemaker after drawings by Henri de Montaut .
The German first edition From the Earth to the Moon: Direct Ascent in 97 Hours was published in 1873 by the Légrády brothers in Pest .
Adaptations
Jacques Offenbach's operetta Le voyage dans la lune from 1875 is a free adaptation of the subject. There, three travelers in a hollow shell are shot to the moon with a cannon. Verne initially wanted to litigate for plagiarism , but then failed to do so.
The 1902 film The Journey to the Moon by French director Georges Méliès is based in part on Verne's novel, as a cannon is used. In 1958, the novel was made into a film under the direction of Byron Haskin with Joseph Cotten , George Sanders , Debra Paget , Don Dubbins and Patric Knowles . The production was of RKO Pictures began because of its dissolution, the film was told by Warner Bros. issued. In both films, however, the makers did not miss the chance to actually land the moon travelers on the moon.
German editions (selection)
- From the Earth to the Moon: Direct trip in ninety-seven hours and twenty minutes . Translated by William Matheson. With 2 maps and 41 illustrations by de Montaut, 12th edition, Diogenes, Zurich 1994, ISBN 3-257-20242-3 .
- From the earth to the moon: direct flight in 97 hours 20 minutes . Translated from the French and edited by Volker Dehs. With all illustrations of the French original edition, Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-423-13643-3 .
- From the earth to the moon . Translated from the French by Joachim Fischer. With all illustrations of the French original edition, Weltbild Verlag, Augsburg 1994, ISBN 3-89350-627-6 .
- From the earth to the moon: with all illustrations from the French original edition from 1865 , Anaconda, Cologne 2014, ISBN 978-3-7306-0162-4 .
literature
- Heinrich Pleticha (ed.): Jules Verne manual . Deutscher Bücherbund / Bertelsmann, Stuttgart and Munich 1992.
- Volker Dehs and Ralf Junkerjürgen: Jules Verne . Voices and interpretations of his work. Fantastic Library Wetzlar, Wetzlar 2005.
- Volker Dehs: Jules Verne . Jules Verne. A critical biography. Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf 2005. ISBN 3-538-07208-6 .
Web links
- From the earth to the moon in Andreas Fehrmann's Jules Verne Collection
- From the earth to the moon at Zeno.org .
- From the earth to the moon in the Gutenberg-DE project
- Retelling and comparison between novel and reality in the astrolexicon
Individual evidence
- ↑ Journal des Débats of September 14, 1865
- ↑ Entry in The Complete Jules Verne Bibliography (accessed June 2, 2010)
- ^ Roland Innerhofer: German Science-fiction 1870-1914 . Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 1996, p. 36, ISBN 3-205-98514-1 .
- ^ Antonio de Almeida, in the supplement to the CD Offenbach CANCAN, Overtures & Ballets , Philips 422 057-2, 1987.