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"Science and science fiction, how do you even distinguish the two?"
- Jerry Pournelle
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| Landing on the Moon | ||
| Men from the earth land on the Moon. |
As far as I know, this is the first reference to this idea.
| Great as the distance is, the entire trip is consummated in four hours at the most. For we are always very busy, and agree not to start until the moon begins to be eclipsed on its eastern side...
In every instance the take-off hits him as a severe shock, for he is hurled just as though he had been shot aloft by gunpowder to sail over mountains and seas. For this reason at the outset he must be lulled to sleep immediately with narcotics and opiates. His limbs must be arranged in such a way that his torso will not be torn away from his buttocks nor his head from his body, but the shock will be distributed among his individual limbs... Hence it is by our will, as I said, that we move the body swiftly along, and we forge ahead of it from now on lest it suffer any harm by colliding very hard with the moon... When they reach Levania (ed: the Moon) there we are as though disembarking from a ship and going ashore. Up there we quickly withdraw into caves and dark places, lest after a short while the sun overpower us in the open... |
| Technovelgy from Somnium (The Dream),
by Johannes Kepler. Published by Not Known in 1634 Additional resources -
|
Eric Frank Russell, in his short story Last Blast published in 1952, described in advance an interesting fact about the moon landings:
Only a ship on Venus or Mars would bring a repeat of those wild international celebrations of sixteen years ago. Such another whoopee had vet to come and by the looks of things there would be a long wait. Thirty million miles come to more than a hop, skip and jump.
Men on the Moon were no novelty. Twenty successive landings had boiled away a world’s capacity for amazement. A feat is remarkable only the first time. Do it again and it reduces to pretty good. Twenty times becomes ordinary.
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| Chrysalis Generation Ship to Alpha Centauri |
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