Introduction to Space Exploration - Space Travel In Early Science Fiction

Science fiction is a category of literature in which an imaginative story is told that incorporates at least some scientific principles to give it a sense of believability. It is a mixture of science and imagination. The term "science fiction" is generally credited to writer Hugo Gernsback (1884–1967), who published a magazine devoted to such stories and started book clubs for science fiction fans. His legacy lives on in the Hugo award, a literary award given each year by the World Science Fiction Society.

Jules Verne

The French author Jules Verne (1828–1905) was one of the earliest science fiction writers to incorporate space travel in his stories. In 1865 he wrote De la terre a la lune (From Earth to the Moon), a tale of an ambitious gun club in America. The men build a massive cannon in Florida and shoot a metal sphere toward the Moon. Inside are three astronauts who plan to explore the lunar surface. Their target misses the mark, and they wind up orbiting the Moon instead. It was the first space travel story based on physics, rather than pure fantasy.

Five years later Verne published the sequel Autour de la lune ('Round the Moon). The astronauts use small onboard rockets to propel their sphere safely back to Earth, where it splashes down and floats in the ocean. A nearby ship rescues the men and takes them home to a heroes' welcome. The similarities are striking between these stories and the actual events of the Apollo flights one hundred years later.

Edward Everett Hale

In 1869 American writer Edward Everett Hale published a remarkable science fiction tale in the Atlantic Monthly. His tale, "The Brick Moon," describes the work of some clever American inventors who decide to build a large beacon to sit in the sky and glow as a constant reference point for ships at sea. To accomplish this goal the men build a large brick sphere set atop a hill. A track leads down the hill to two giant spinning wheels that are set in a gorge and turned by water from a rushing river. The wheels are to catapult the brick moon into space.

One day the brick moon accidentally rolls away from its restraints and is flung into space with some of the workers and their families aboard. For months their friends on the ground search the night skies with telescopes until finally they spot the satellite in Earth orbit. They are amazed to see the moon inhabitants living happily on the satellite surface. On occasion the inhabitants send signals back to Earth by forming a long line and simultaneously making large and small jumps into the air to spell out messages in Morse code.

The story is prophetic in one interesting respect. During brick moon construction the inventors are plagued by constant design changes, funding problems, and criticism from the public and the press. These difficulties would become common ones for the space programs that later developed.

H. G. Wells

Around the turn of the twentieth century the English author Herbert George Wells (1866–1946) wrote popular space travel stories including The War of the Worlds (1898) and The First Men on the Moon (1901).

The War of the Worlds featured Martian invaders landing spacecraft near London and terrorizing the population with destructive machines and poisonous gas. In the end the humans prevail when a common germ kills the Martians. During the 1930s the story was made into a radio play and rewritten for an American audience. On October 30, 1938 (the night before Halloween), the play was broadcast as a mock newscast. Unfortunately some listeners thought the "news" was real, and there were scattered incidents of panic.

The First Men on the Moon also included unfriendly aliens, this time on the Moon. Some daring explorers from Earth travel to the Moon and are captured by ant-like creatures called Selenites. The name is derived from Selene, the mythical Greek goddess of the Moon. The story features little actual science and is generally considered more of a romantic adventure tale set in space.

George Méliès

In 1902 the French director Georges Méliès created the first known science fiction motion picture. Le voyage dans la lune (Trip to the Moon) is an eleven-minute silent film very loosely based on the Jules Verne stories about Moon travel.

This time five brave Frenchmen are catapulted to the Moon where their rocket actually impacts the giant right eye of the "man in the Moon." The astronauts begin exploring, but are captured by unfriendly Selenites. The explorers manage to escape back to their spacecraft and push it off the edge of the Moon to fall back to Earth. They splash down in the sea and return to France as heroes.