Jules Verne was kind of a freak about math. Most people think of From the Earth to the Moon as just another dusty 19th-century adventure story, something you'd find in the bargain bin of a used bookstore. But honestly? It’s basically the blueprint for the Apollo missions, written by a guy who didn't even have a telephone yet. Verne published this thing in 1865. Civil War was barely over. Yet, he managed to predict the launch site, the number of crew members, and the splashdown in the Pacific with eerie accuracy.
It’s weird.
People usually lump Verne in with H.G. Wells, but they were totally different flavors of nerd. Wells would just invent "Cavorite"—a magical anti-gravity metal—to get his characters into space. Verne hated that. He thought it was lazy. He wanted to use physics. He wanted to prove that getting from the Earth to the Moon was a logistical problem, not a magical one. He sat there in France with his pens and his ledgers, calculating muzzle velocities and atmospheric resistance because he wanted the "science" in his science fiction to actually hold water.
The Gun Club and the Great Cannon
The story starts in Baltimore. It’s a bunch of bored artillery experts from the Gun Club who realize they have nothing to do now that the American Civil War is over. Their solution? Build a massive cannon called the Columbiad, sink it into the ground in Florida, and blast a projectile straight at the lunar surface.
They choose Tampa. Verne’s reasoning was that they needed to be as close to the equator as possible to take advantage of the Earth’s rotational speed. Look at a map of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center today. It’s a stone’s throw from where Verne placed his fictional launch site. He knew. He understood the "slingshot" effect of the Earth’s rotation before we even had a word for "aerospace."
The cannon itself was 900 feet long. Cast in the ground. They used 400,000 pounds of guncotton. It’s total overkill by modern standards, and frankly, the G-forces would have turned the passengers into strawberry jam the second the fuse was lit. Verne actually acknowledges the shock would be "considerable," but he tries to solve it with a system of water-filled shock absorbers. It wouldn't have worked. The crew would be dead. But the fact that he even thought about the G-force problem is what separates him from every other writer of his era.
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Real Science vs. Victorian Guesswork
Verne’s projectile—the Baltimore Gun Club's "train car" to the stars—was made of aluminum. Think about that for a second. In 1865, aluminum was an incredibly rare, precious metal. It was more expensive than gold because we hadn't figured out the Hall-Héroult process for mass-producing it yet. Verne chose it because it was lightweight and strong.
He was right.
Today, we use aluminum-lithium alloys for spacecraft. He saw the future of metallurgy through a telescope.
What Verne Got Right (And What He Didn't)
- The Crew: He landed on three men. Apollo 11? Three men.
- The Cost: He estimated the project would cost about $5.5 million in 1865 dollars. Adjusted for inflation and the sheer scale of national effort, it’s not miles off from the massive GDP-sinking investment required for the real Moon race.
- The Physics of Zero-G: This is where it gets funny. Verne thought weightlessness only happened at the "neutral point" where the Earth's and Moon’s gravity perfectly canceled each other out. In reality, you're weightless the whole time you're in orbit or freefall. You've probably seen the "vomit comet" videos; it’s constant. Verne missed that, but he did accurately describe the sensation of drifting inside the cabin.
He also spent a huge chunk of the book talking about the telescope they built in the Rocky Mountains to track the shot. He understood that you can’t just fire and forget. You need telemetry. You need a way to see what's happening. He was building a mission control center in his mind a century before Houston ever existed.
Why We Still Care About This Book
Most modern sci-fi is about "warp drives" or "stargates." It’s basically magic with a chrome paint job. From the Earth to the Moon is different because it’s about the effort. It’s about the meetings, the fundraising, the engineering debates, and the public frenzy.
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Verne captured the "Space Race" vibe long before the Cold War. He understood that going to the Moon wasn't just about a guy in a suit; it was a feat of industrial will. The book is arguably more about the madness of the Gun Club—these obsessed, violent, brilliant engineers—than it is about the Moon itself. It’s a satire of American "can-do" (and "must-destroy") attitude.
When the capsule finally splashes down in the Pacific Ocean at the end of the sequel (Around the Moon), it mirrors the Apollo 11 recovery almost perfectly. The USS Hornet picking up Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin looks like a live-action remake of Verne’s final chapters. It’s one of those rare moments where literature predicts reality so closely it feels like the universe is glitching.
The Dark Side of the Cannon
Let’s be real: Verne’s method was a death trap.
If you were actually inside that shell when 400,000 pounds of guncotton exploded, you wouldn't be "traveling." You'd be vapor. The acceleration would be something like 20,000 Gs. Human bodies tap out at about 9 or 10 Gs for short bursts.
The pressure would be equivalent to being flattened by a skyscraper.
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But Verne wasn't trying to write a technical manual for NASA; he was trying to inspire the idea of the trip. He gave people a visual. He made the Moon feel like a destination rather than a god or a light in the sky. He commercialized the heavens.
Actionable Insights for the Modern Reader
If you’re interested in the intersection of Victorian imagination and real-world physics, don't just read the SparkNotes. There’s a lot to learn from Verne’s approach to "hard" science fiction.
- Check out the original illustrations: Look for the 1865 Hetzel edition prints. The woodcuts by Alphonse de Neuville and Édouard Riou are incredibly detailed and show the "interior" of the capsule, including the padded walls and the storage for the dogs (yes, they took dogs).
- Compare the trajectories: If you’re a math nerd, look up the "Verne Cannon" problem. Modern physicists have actually modeled what would happen to a projectile fired at those speeds through the atmosphere. Spoiler: It would burn up like a meteor before it even left the barrel.
- Read the sequel: From the Earth to the Moon actually ends on a cliffhanger. You have to read Around the Moon to see how they get back. It involves some very creative use of "retro-rockets" (Verne called them rockets!) to change their orbit.
- Visit the sites: If you’re ever in Florida, go to the Kennedy Space Center. Stand on the marshy ground and realize that a French novelist picked this exact swamp as the gateway to the stars 100 years before a rocket ever touched it.
Verne didn't have computers. He didn't have CAD software. He had a slide rule and a massive library. The fact that we are still talking about his "cannon" in an era of SpaceX and Artemis tells you everything you need to know about the power of a well-researched dream. Getting from the Earth to the Moon started in a book, and that’s where the real "giant leap" actually happened.
Go find a copy of the 1867 translation. It’s more "clunky" but it feels more authentic to the time. Skip the modern abridged versions; they cut out the math, and the math is where the soul of the book lives. Dive into the lists of planetary distances and gunpowder chemistry. It’s a wild ride through a mind that was living in 1969 while his body was stuck in the mid-1800s.