From the Earth to the Moon, Direct in Ninety-Seven Hours and Twenty Minutes: and a Trip Round It — John Shaqi
From the Earth to the Moon, Direct in Ninety-Seven Hours and Twenty Minutes: and a Trip Round ItVerne, Jules
Science
From the Earth to the Moon, Direct in Ninety-Seven Hours and Twenty Minutes: and a Trip Round It
Verne, Jules
Manned space flight -- Fiction; Moon -- Fiction; Science fiction; Space flight to the moon -- Fiction; Space ships -- Fiction
"_Answer_.—After what has been said above, it will be necessary, first
of all, to choose the period when the moon will be in perigee, and also
the moment when she will be crossing the zenith, which latter event will
further diminish the entire distance by a length equal to the radius of
the earth, i.e. 3919 miles; the result of which will be that the final
passage remaining to be accomplished will be 214,976 miles. But although
the moon passes her perigee every month, she does not reach the zenith
always at _exactly the same moment._ She does not appear under these two
conditions simultaneously, except at long intervals of time. It will be
necessary, therefore, to wait for the moment when her passage in perigee
shall coincide with that in the zenith. Now, by a fortunate circumstance,
on the 4th December in the ensuing year the moon _will_ present these two
conditions. At midnight she will be in perigee, that is, at her shortest
distance from the earth, and at the same moment she will be crossing the
zenith.
"On the _fifth_ question, 'At what point in the heavens ought the cannon
to be aimed?'
"_Answer_.—The preceding remarks being admitted, the cannon ought to
be pointed to the zenith of the place. Its fire, therefore, will be
perpendicular to the plane of the horizon; and the projectile will soonest
pass beyond the range of the terrestrial attraction. But, in order that
the moon should reach the zenith of a given place, it is necessary that
the place should not exceed in latitude the declination of the luminary;
in other words, it must be comprised within the degrees 0° and 28° of
lat. N. or S. In every other spot the fire must necessarily be oblique,
which would seriously militate against the success of the experiment.
"As to the _sixth_ question, 'What place will the moon occupy in the
heavens at the moment of the projectile's departure?'
"_Answer_.—At the moment when the projectile shall be discharged
into space, the moon, which travels daily forward 13° 10' 35", will be
distant from the zenith point by four times that quantity, i.e. by 52°
42' 20", a space which corresponds to the path which she will describe
during the entire journey of the projectile. But, inasmuch as it is
equally necessary to take into account the deviation which the rotary
motion of the earth will impart to the shot, and as the shot cannot reach
the moon until after a deviation equal to 16 radii of the earth, which,
calculated upon the moon's orbit, are equal to about eleven degrees, it
becomes necessary to add these eleven degrees to those which express the
retardation of the moon just mentioned: that is to say, in round numbers,
about 64 degrees. Consequently, at the moment of firing the visual radius
applied to the moon will describe, with the vertical line of the place,
an angle of sixty-four degrees.
"These are our answers to the questions proposed to the Observatory of
Cambridge by the members of the Gun Club:—
"To sum up,—
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