History Literature / FromTheEarthToTheMoon

* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: ''From the Earth to the Moon'' is about making a gun big enough to shoot a bullet from the earth to the moon. ''Around the Moon'' is about the voyage of the three astronauts[[note]]or, in modern [[PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad politically correct parlance]], two astronauts and one spationaut[[/note]] around the moon.

* Defictionalization: ''Not'' Apollo 11. In the books they only orbited, which was done by Apollo 8, and the free-return trajectory followed by the projectile is most similar to the path of Apollo 13.

* OneLinerNameOneLiner: "White all, Barbicane! White all!"

* [[TheMountainsOfIllinois The Mountains of Florida]]: Verne gets full marks for locating the launch site, he loses half of it for digging the gun into a hill much taller than the highest spot in the state.

* ShownTheirWork: Verne went to great lengths to specify solid numbers to support the characters’ plan. There are also things that he predicted correctly, like the location the astronauts would launch from, the number of astronauts and, within a range of error, where they would land.
** There was one inaccuracy though: Verne assumed the price of aluminium in 1865 conditions to be $9 per pound ($19.8 per kg), which would have made the projectile the most expensive part of the entire project. In practice, aluminium in 1859-1865 conditions was worth more than $40 per kg (and this was a great step forward from the 1850-1855 level of technology, which made aluminium ''more expensive than gold''). At that particular step in time, there had been a wave of pro-aluminium enthusiasm in the French upper circles, it has been seen as the metal of the future and Emperor Napoleon III himself hoped the French Army could be equipped with lightweight armor made from it.
*** And then just 20 years later the electrolytic Hall–Héroult process was invented, which radically dropped the prices and made the aluminum to cost basically only about the price of electricity it is made with — today the cost of energy is ~40-50% of the overall cost of the primary aluminum, the ore extraction, purification, delivery and the end metal distribution taking the other half. So it's more the case of the [[TechMarchesOn Tech Not Marching On]] ''fast enough''.

''From the Earth to the Moon'' was loosely adapted into the GeorgesMelies [[SilentFilms silent film]] ''Film/ATripToTheMoon'' (1903), which is regarded today as a milestone in the development of EarlyFilms.

I think that without using citations, writing about such a controversial topic at length is a bad idea. In my opinion, the page should only give a brief, non-controversial summary of Nixon's political career and list his appearances in fiction.

* SpaceIsCold: Specifically, -140C, as measured by sticking an alcohol thermometer outside the projectile for a few hours. One of the more realistic depictions, as cooling isn't instant, and is only an issue when the astronauts are out of direct sunlight for a while.

* BiggerIsBetter: The Gun-Club really likes this trope, but none more that J. T. Maston, who envisions a gun half a mile long. [[Warhammer40K Da orks]] would be proud.

* UnknowRival: Averted: Nicholl and Barbicane are very much aware of each other's existence (see LensmanArmsRace), but they've never met in person thanks to mutual friends. The trope comes in full force when the end of the war prevents Nicholl's latest invention from being tested, he demands Barbicane shoot it from ever-shorter distances, but he refuses. Nicholl's final offer is to put his plate at twenty-five yards from the cannon and stand behind it, Barbicane answers that were Nicholl to stand in front of it, he wouldn't fire.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Captain Nicholl, as Ardan and Maston find out the day of the duel.

* SceneryPorn: ''Around the Moon'' contains loving, highly-detailed descriptions of the Moonscape the astronauts are passing over. Unfortunately, [[ScienceMarchesOn virtually every word of it is wrong]].

* ScienceMarchesOn: Some of the facts are wrong, but you can’t blame Verne for not knowing something that nobody else knew. ''Around the Moon'' in particular suffers from this, considering the book is mostly about three people discussing the moon and the space around them.
* ShownTheirWork: Verne went to great lenghs to specify solid numbers to support the characters’ plan. There are also things that he predicted correctly, like the location the astronauts would launch from, the number of astronauts and, within a range of error, where they would land.

* WriteWhoYouKnow: Michel Ardan is based on a Verne's close friend Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, a famous photographer, journalist and aeronautics enthusiast, better known as [[SignificantAnagram Nadar]].
** Ironically, in the sequel Ardan mentions Nadar as a model that the moonmen may have had a copy of.

* BatmanCanBreatheInSpace: Michael Ardan is asked whether it is not foolish, since there is little or no air on the Moon? "Then I will only breathe on special occasions!" he quips.

--> '''J. T. Maston''' (upon hearing the Moon Gun should be a reasonable 225ft long): ''"Ridiculous! As well take a pistol." ''
* HookHand: J. T. Maston, due to him being a Civil War veteran. [[WordOfGod The given explanation]] is he lost the hand and got a horrible head wound (which he covers with a guttapercha skullcap) when [[HoistByHisOwnPetard a giant mortar he designed exploded at first shot]] killing 375 men an disabling even more.
** All but one member of the gun club are missing a limb or two. They work with explosives all the time, pre-TNT and pre-computers.

* Defictionalization: In the most awesome way ever Neil Armstrong even mentioned the book during the return of trip of Apollo 11 to earth.
** Apollo 11 was not the defictionlaization incidnetally, in the books they only orbited, which was done by Apollo 8.

* SequelHook
* SceneryPorn

* SpaceIsCold

Five years later, Verne wrote a follow up, ''Around the Moon'' (French: ''Autour de la Lune''), about the situations that Ardan and his two companions on the projectile, Barbicane and Nicholl, have to deal with while on their way to the moon and back. As a curious fact, the book finished in his serialized form in 1869; exactly a hundred years later, man would reach the moon.

* DuelToTheDeath: Nicholl challenges Barbicane to a duel with rifles. [[spoiler:Both were late, though, for different reasons]].

Some time after the AmericanCivilWar, members of a certain social club in Usefulnotes/{{Baltimore}}, called The Gun Club (because it consists largely of [[JustifiedTrope Civil War artillery officers and various defense industrialists]]) starts wondering what can they do in these times of peace — during the war they entertained themselves building guns that kept going bigger and bigger, but that's an expensive hobby in a peacetime.

* {{Eagleland}}: The United States are portrayed as a bunch of TriggerHappy, hard-working {{Determinator}}s.

* A 19th century inversion: in order to test whether the rocket's living compartment is secure, several animals are put inside including a cat and a pet squirrel belonging to one of the Gun Club. A week later, the compartment is opened, but the squirrel has evidently been eaten by the cat. The distraught owner wants to put its name on a monument as a martyr ForScience.

Some time after the AmericanCivilWar, members of a certain social club in Baltimore, called The Gun Club (because it consists largely of [[JustifiedTrope Civil War artillery officers and various defense industrialists]]) starts wondering what can they do in these times of peace — during the war they entertained themselves building guns that kept going bigger and bigger, but that's an expensive hobby in a peacetime.

* WhatTheHellHero: Maston was more than willing to start a war with France because they laughed at an American and another war with Mexico only to acquire land for the launching, nevermind the fact that they [[{{Florida}} already had land below the latitude required]]. In ''The Purchase of the North Pole'', the Gun Club didn’t seem to mind that tilting the axis of the Earth would provoke floods in other parts of the world.

* There was one inaccuracy: Verne assumed the price of aluminium in 1865 conditions to be $9 per pound ($19.8 per kg), which would have made the projectile the most expensive part of the entire project. In practice, aluminium in 1859-1865 conditions was worth more than $40 per kg (and this was a great step forward from the 1850-1855 level of technology, which made aluminium ''more expensive than gold''). At that particular step in time, there had been a wave of pro-aluminium enthusiasm in the French upper circles, it has been seen as the metal of the future and Emperor Napoleon III himself hoped the French Army could be equipped with lightweight armor made from it.

* {{BFG}}: The cannon used to launch the projectile.