From the Earth to the Moon

This volume combines two novels by Jules Verne: From the Earth to the Moon (1865) and its sequel, Round the Moon. Together they tell the story of a post-Civil War artillery club that builds a giant cannon to launch a manned projectile toward the moon.

During the American Civil War, an influential society of artillerists called the Gun Club forms in Baltimore, Maryland, dedicated to advancing the science of gunnery. Its members achieve remarkable innovations, but the war's end leaves them idle and despondent. Many bear severe injuries, including J. T. Maston, the club's passionate secretary, who has a steel hook for a hand and an artificial cranium made of gutta-percha, a type of rubber. When the members threaten to disband, a circular arrives from the club's president, Impey Barbicane, a calm, practical 40-year-old timber merchant, summoning them to a meeting of great importance.

On October 5, Barbicane addresses a packed hall and proposes firing a projectile to the moon with an initial velocity of 12,000 yards per second. Barbicane consults the Observatory of Cambridge, Massachusetts, which confirms the project's feasibility. Director J. M. Belfast specifies that the cannon must be located between 0° and 28° north or south latitude and that the projectile must be discharged at 10:46:40 p.m. on December 1, when the moon will be at perigee (its closest approach to Earth, at 218,657 miles) and crossing the zenith, the point in the sky directly overhead. If this date is missed, the same conditions will not recur for over 18 years.

Barbicane forms a Working Committee to resolve the technical challenges. They design a hollow aluminum shell nine feet in diameter, weighing approximately 19,250 pounds. The cannon, called the Columbiad, will be 900 feet of cast iron sunk vertically into the earth. For propulsion they choose 400,000 pounds of pyroxyle (gun-cotton), four times more powerful than ordinary gunpowder. Only one man opposes the project: Captain Nicholl, a Philadelphia armor-plate specialist and Barbicane's longstanding rival. Nicholl publishes five escalating wagers totaling $15,000 against the project; Barbicane accepts each.

After a rivalry between Texas and Florida over the launch site, Barbicane selects Tampa Town, Florida. A worldwide subscription raises over $5.4 million. At Stones Hill, a rocky plateau at 27°7' north latitude, 1,500 workers excavate a well 60 feet in diameter and 900 feet deep. Twelve hundred furnaces melt 136 million pounds of cast iron and pour it into the shaft. By September 22, the polished Columbiad stands finished.

On September 30, a telegram from Paris transforms the project. Michel Ardan, a Frenchman, proposes replacing the spherical shell with a cylinder-shaped projectile tipped with a cone and riding inside it to the moon. Ardan arrives in Tampa Town, a boisterous, red-haired adventurer of about 42 whose ruling passion is the love of the impossible. At a public meeting, he fields questions about the journey's dangers with cheerful confidence, declaring he does not intend to come back. An unknown antagonist challenges Ardan on the moon's lack of atmosphere and reveals himself as Captain Nicholl. Nicholl and Barbicane arrange a duel, but Ardan and Maston intervene, finding the rivals peacefully distracted: Nicholl freeing a bird from a spider's web, Barbicane absorbed in calculations. Barbicane announces he has solved the problem of cushioning the launch shock with water and breakable partitions. Ardan proposes all three travel together; both rivals accept.

The redesigned projectile features a bed of water supporting a disc for the travelers, with partitions that break in succession to absorb the shock. It is equipped with observation windows, gas for light and heat, chemicals to generate oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide, provisions, and two dogs, Diana and Satellite. A test launch with animals proves the design viable. A telescope magnifying 48,000 times is erected atop Long's Peak in the Rocky Mountains to track the journey, and the vehicle is loaded and lowered into the Columbiad.

On December 1, 5 million spectators surround Stones Hill. At 10:46:40 p.m., Murchison, the engineer charged with firing the cannon, presses the electric key. An appalling report shakes all of Florida and knocks every spectator flat. Days of cloud cover prevent observation, but on December 12, the Long's Peak telescope detects the projectile apparently orbiting the moon.

The sequel picks up inside the projectile at the moment of launch. The three travelers are knocked unconscious but recover: Ardan first, then Nicholl, then Barbicane, who has a minor shoulder wound. Through the windows they see only darkness and stars; the Earth appears as a thin silver crescent. They encounter a large asteroid, a second satellite of Earth, whose distance lets Barbicane calculate their position. Satellite the dog dies from launch injuries, and the travelers eject the body into space, where it follows the projectile at equal speed through the vacuum.

An alarming calculation suggests the initial velocity was insufficient to reach the moon, but Nicholl notes they have traveled 32 hours without falling back, proving the gun-cotton was more powerful than predicted. Ardan accidentally opens the oxygen tap, flooding the interior with pure oxygen and causing a dangerous intoxication: The three men grow wildly excited before collapsing. Nicholl discovers and corrects the problem.

Near the neutral point where terrestrial and lunar gravity balance, the travelers experience weightlessness, hovering freely inside the projectile. Barbicane discovers that the large meteor they encountered earlier deflected their course. Rather than striking the lunar surface, the projectile passes within approximately 25 miles of the moon's north pole. The travelers observe craters, mountains, and radiating light beams in extraordinary detail before crossing into 354 hours of total darkness on the moon's night side. Barbicane detects a volcanic eruption, proving internal heat persists. A burning meteor bursts nearby, briefly illuminating the far side, where they glimpse what may be seas, forests, and continents.

Rounding the south pole, the projectile re-enters sunlight. The travelers observe snow on mountain peaks and the dazzling crater Tycho. They unanimously conclude the moon is not currently habitable but was likely once inhabited, before its atmosphere dissipated and its surface cooled. Barbicane proposes using rockets mounted on the projectile's base to alter their trajectory at the neutral point, where their speed will reach zero. After a 22-hour wait, Ardan lights the rockets, but instead of falling toward the moon, the projectile begins falling back toward Earth. The residual speed carried them past the dead point, and the laws of physics force them to retrace their path.

The U.S. Navy corvette Susquehanna, conducting soundings in the Pacific, witnesses a flaming object crash into the ocean on the night of December 11-12. At Long's Peak, Maston receives the news and falls down the telescope tube in shock, saved by his iron hook. The Susquehanna returns to the splashdown coordinates with diving equipment, but days of searching fail. On December 29, a sailor spots a buoy with an American flag. Maston realizes the lightweight aluminum projectile must be floating on the surface. Through a broken window, rescuers hear Ardan's voice. Barbicane, Nicholl, and Ardan are found alive, calmly playing dominoes.

The three return to Baltimore to enormous acclaim. Their observations confirm the moon's volcanic nature, though they conclude it is not currently habitable. A new venture is announced: the National Company of Interstellary Communication, with Barbicane as president, Nicholl as vice-president, Maston as secretary, and Ardan as Director of Movements, suggesting the audacious journey may one day be repeated.