Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"I've taken some stick for passages in Altered Carbon which people complained had sickened them, but then violence should be sickening."
- Richard Morgan
 |
| Free Return Trajectory | ||
| The idea that it would be possible for a projectile to go around the Moon and then return to Earth. |
It was the intent of the Baltimore Gun Club to actually hit the Moon with a projectile. However, upon missing the Moon the passengers began to debate upon the course of the projectile.
| In watching the course of the projectile they could see that on
leaving the moon it followed a course analogous to that traced
in approaching her. It was describing a very long ellipse,
which would most likely extend to the point of equal attraction,
where the influences of the earth and its satellite are neutralized.
Such was the conclusion which Barbicane very justly drew from facts already observed, a conviction which his two friends shared with him. "And when arrived at this dead point, what will become of us?" asked Michel Ardan. "We don't know," replied Barbicane. "But one can draw some hypotheses, I suppose?" "Two," answered Barbicane; "either the projectile's speed will be insufficient, and it will remain forever immovable on this line of double attraction----" "I prefer the other hypothesis, whatever it may be," interrupted Michel. "Or," continued Barbicane, "its speed will be sufficient, and it will continue its elliptical course, to gravitate forever around the orb of night." |
| From From the Earth to the Moon,
by Jules Verne. Published by Various in 1867 Additional resources -
|
In writing the story the way he did, Verne became the first person to describe the idea of a free return trajectory, that is, a path that would lead from the Earth, around the Moon, and back to Earth again without any additional fuel expended for navigation.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 2 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from From the Earth to the Moon
More Ideas
and Technology by Jules Verne
Tech news articles related to From the Earth to the Moon
Tech news articles related to works by Jules Verne
| Powdered Regolith Propulsion |
| Tether Asteroids To Save Us All |
| Perhaps You Might Be Interested In Habitable Exoplanet Moon Real Estate |
| SpaceX Will Build Floating Spaceports! |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
'Immediately an enormous apparatus fell on to her out of the ceiling...'
'... filling their great tanks with the finely divided dust which the ionic rockets would spit out in electrified jets.'
'In the napcap a client became an instant yoga master...'
'Employees above a certain level were implanted with advanced microprocessors...'
'Jeremiah is a sports-model to begin with and that kind is awfully hot-tempered.'
'If anything can glue the asteroids back into the planet they once were, magnology will do it.'
A cooling unit had to be strapped to every commuter's back, by law.
'...lined with durite, that strange close-packed laboratory product.'
'He was still roaring when the knife missile flicked past him...'
