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1[[quoteright:292:[[Literature/FromTheEarthToTheMoon https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jules_verne_from_the_earth_to_the_moon.png]]]]
2
3An Interplanetary Voyage is a specific type of science-fiction story that takes the phrase "getting there is half the fun" very literally. In most cases these stories focus just as much, if not more, on the actual process of traveling in space as they do on the destination itself.
4
5At the beginning of the Science Fiction genre, space travel was a new and novel trope. It wasn't about the destination - the [[BoldExplorer journey alone was interesting enough]]. There was no CasualInterplanetaryTravel (let alone ''[[CasualInterstellarTravel interstellar]]''). We didn't have your fancy [[FasterThanLightTravel Hyper Drive]] or [[PortalNetwork wormhole networks]] or your [[SubspaceAnsible sub-ether anagrammed-tribadist Teslafied radio transmittion contraptions]], and we had to walk sixteen miles back and forth through the snow to the launch site. We were lucky if we had a pith helmet! Our science was silly, but it tried to be hard ...[[ScienceMarchesOn for its time]] (except for [[Creator/HGWells Cavorite]]. That's just [[HandWave magic]]).
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7[[WhenIWasYourAge You youngsters]] with your single-stage rockets and inertialess drives and horseless space shuttles have it easy. Back then, you had to build a balloon filled with evaporating morning dew, or strap on a giant rocket, or [[Film/ATripToTheMoon get shot out of a bloody cannon at the Man in the Moon and put his eye out]].
8That's how we did it.
9
10Well, that's how the hired help did it.
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12You could go anywhere your heart desired, as long it was UsefulNotes/{{the Moon}}, UsefulNotes/{{Mars}}, or UsefulNotes/{{Venus}}. Or the CounterEarth, ruled by the rapacious Hun and the Kounter-Kaiser!
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14[[PlanetaryRomance Back then, Men were Men, the Moon Men were Moon Men, or sometimes bats or bugs, Martians were Martians, and the Venusians were jungle-dwelling crab women!]]
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16And that's how we liked it, consarnit!
17
18Nowadays, this is largely a DeadHorseTrope outside of parodies or GenreThrowback works. Space travel actually exists now, and even short journeys mostly involve astronauts sitting around in cramped living conditions with little privacy or entertainment options, a far cry from past visions of romantic interplanetary travel. Focusing on the destination rather than the journey allows writers to spend less time on the boring minutiae of space travel and more time building alien worlds. As a result, Interplanetary Voyage stories are strongly associated with science fiction novels of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and with pulp magazines published during that era.
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20Nevertheless, some modern writers still play this trope straight as deliberate {{Zeerust}}, while others treat it more realistically--works on the harder side of the SlidingScale/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness might depict a crewed mission to a planet like Mars or Jupiter using modern or near-future technology as a long and arduous journey, dealing with challenges such as life support, radiation, or equipment failures.
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22See also JourneyToTheSky, its earthly equivalent. Contrast CasualInterplanetaryTravel, where travel between planets is so trivial that it is barely touched upon in the story.
23----
24!!'''Examples:'''
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26
27
28[[foldercontrol]]
29
30[[folder:Comic Books]]
31* The ComicBook/{{Planetary}} story "The Gun Club" features a horror-tinged {{Deconstruction}} of Verne's classic tale, ''Literature/FromTheEarthToTheMoon.''
32* The second story arc of ''ComicBook/DeCapeEtDeCrocs'' takes place on the moon and pays tribute to ''Cyrano de Bergerac''.
33* ''ComicStrip/DanDare'' in ''The Eagle'' comic is perhaps ''the'' example of trying hard to be scientifically accurate space travel (for the 1950s, at least), with (almost all) the stories being limited to travel around a then-realistic version of the solar system using then-realistic spacecraft etc.
34* ''{{Franchise/Tintin}}'' featured one such voyage in the album ''Destination Moon''. The story is continued in the next one, ''Explorers on the Moon''.
35* ''ComicBook/TheSmurfs'' comic book story (and its AnimatedAdaptation) "The Astro Smurf" have its title character attempt this with the creation of his smurfship, although his attempt ended up failing. Papa Smurf and all his little Smurfs secretly lead Astro into a FauxtasticVoyage by transporting his ship inside an inactive volcano and turning themselves into the alien cavepeople called Swoofs.
36[[/folder]]
37
38[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
39* ''Film/ATripToTheMoon'', the 1902 film by Georges Méliès.
40* A countless number of B-movies, such as ''Film/RocketshipToVenus'', ''Film/RocketshipXM'', ''Film/DestinationMoon'' and ''Film/ProjectMoonbase''.
41* ''Film/MissionToMars'' and ''Film/RedPlanet'', newer version of this trope.
42* Perhaps the best contemporary example would be ''Film/EuropaReport'': hard sci-fi horror, presented in ApocalypticLog form, yet still somehow manages to convey the same sense of wonder that is intrinsic of this trope.
43* Creator/FritzLang's 1929 film ''Film/WomanInTheMoon.''
44* ''Film/{{Aelita}}'', a groundbreaking 1924 Soviet science fiction film, describes a voyage to Mars.
45* The Russian film ''[[Film/PlanetOfStorms Planeta Bur]]'' (Storm Planet, 1962) is about an expedition to Venus that discovers dinosaurs. Bit of a running theme, actually.
46* ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey'', involving the ''Discovery's'' mission to Jupiter.
47** And its sequel, ''Film/TwoThousandTenTheYearWeMakeContact.''
48* ''Film/Apollo13'' probably comes closer to this trope than any other film based on a true story.
49* ''Film/TheMartian'', based on the eponymous novel.
50[[/folder]]
51
52[[folder:Literature]]
53* ''Literature/TrueHistory'': Lucian's UrExample is the first work of western fiction about a voyage to the moon.
54* ''Literature/OrlandoFurioso'', loosely based on the era of Charlemagne, has the knight Astolfo fly to the Moon on a hippogriff.
55* ''Somnium'' by Juan Maldonado (1541).
56* Johannes Kepler's ''Somnium'', where demons take a man to the Moon.
57* ''The Man in the Moone'' by Francis Godwin, (1638) in which a Spaniard takes a swan-powered boat trip to the Moon.
58* ''Voyage dans la Lune'' (1657) by the RealLife Cyrano de Bergerac, where fireworks are used as rockets.
59* ''The Consolidator'' (1705) by Daniel Defoe, a trip to the moon in a Chinese invention.
60* ''Literature/TheSurprisingAdventuresOfBaronMunchausen'' (1786) involves two trips to the Moon.
61* ''A Voyage to the Moon'' by Aratus (1793)
62* ''The Conquest of the Moon'' by Washington Irving, an allegory about the colonization of America.
63* ''A Flight to the Moon'' by George Fowler (1813).
64* ''A Voyage to the Moon'' (1827) by George Tucker.
65* "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall" (1835) by Edgar Allan Poe involves a balloon trip to the Moon.
66* ''In Les Exilés de la Terre'' (Exiled from Earth) by Paschal Grousset involves a trip inside of an iron mountain in Sudan that has been converted into a magnetically driven vehicle (1887).
67* The 1903 Polish work ''The Silver Globe'' by Jerzy Żuławski.
68* ''Literature/FromTheEarthToTheMoon'' by Creator/JulesVerne, and its film and opera adaptations. [[spoiler:Subverted in that they never actually land on the moon, they end up stuck in decaying orbit and land back in the Pacific.]]
69* ''Literature/TheFirstMenInTheMoon'' by H.G. Wells (1901).
70* Heinlein's ''Luna Cycle'' of short stories and novels.
71* ''Literature/{{Roverandom}}'' by Tolkien, about a humorous trip to the moon taken by his 4-year-old son Michael's lost toy dog.
72* ''Literature/DoctorDolittle in the Moon'' by Creator/HughLofting, where the Doctor flies to the moon on the back of a giant moth.
73* C.S. Lewis' ''Literature/SpaceTrilogy'':
74** ''Literature/OutOfTheSilentPlanet'' has Ransom abducted and taken to Malacandara (Mars).
75** ''Literature/{{Perelandra}}'' has Ransom willingly go to Perelandra (Venus).
76** ''Literature/ThatHideousStrength'' has an inversion: several eldila (effectively, [[spoiler:angels]]) travel from 'their' planets to visit Ransom.
77* Creator/ArthurCClarke's 1951 ''Prelude to Space'', to the point where the entire story revolves around the launch preparations and the flight itself is almost an afterthought.
78* ''Across the Zodiac'' by Percy Greg, describing a 1880 trip to Mars.
79* ''Unveiling a Parallel,'' an 1893 feminist allegory by Alice Ilgenfritz Jones and Ella Merchant describing a Martian voyage.
80* ''Journey to Mars'' and ''Journey to Venus'' by Gustavus W. Pope. Venus is covered in dinosaurs.
81* ''A Journey In Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future'' (1894) by John Jacob Astor IV, who was also notable as the richest man to die on the ''UsefulNotes/RMSTitanic''.
82* ''Literature/EdisonsConquestOfMars'' (1898) by Garrett P. Serviss. Not as awesome as the name implies, as Edison commits genocide against the Martians. The message is less ''Scientific progress is fun!'' and more ''do not fuck with Edison.''
83* 1905's ''Gullivar of Mars'' by Edwin Lester Linden Arnold, using a magic carpet.
84* ''Doctor Omega'' (1906) by Arnould Galopin.
85* ''The Great Romance'', a 1881 novel about a trip to Venus.
86* ''A Trip To Venus'' by John Munro (1897)
87* Creator/StephenKing's short story "The Cursed Expedition" is about a trip to a [[GeniusLoci living, carnivorous]] Venus.
88* Creator/LarryNiven's ''Literature/KnownSpace'' short story "Becalmed in Hell" (1965), involving a trip to a hellishly hot Venus. "The Coldest Place" and "The Hole Man" were set on Mercury and Mars, respectively.
89* Ben Bova's 2000 novel ''Venus'' involves a scientifically accurrate trip to Venus. Also, the rest of his ''Grand Tour'' series.
90* The {{Backstory}} of the ''Literature/RedMarsTrilogy'' has John Boone become a worldwide hero-celebrity because he led the first Mars voyage.
91* ''[[http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/valente_08_09/ The Radiant Car Thy Sparrows Drew]]'', a 2009 short story by Creator/CatherynneMValente has a documentary team fired into space from a giant cannon and exploring Venus via silk balloon.
92* ''Literature/TheLastHero'' is a {{Magitek}} version, with a group of explorers reaching the Literature/{{Discworld}}'s moon by means of a giant wooden bird powered by [[OurDragonsAreDifferent swamp dragons]].
93* ''{{Literature/Voyage}}'' by Stephen Baxter is a combination of hard sci-fi interpretations of this and AlternateHistory tropes.
94* ''Literature/TheMartian'' is [[ShownTheirWork a very well researched]] modern take on this trope.
95* ''Literature/RoadToMars'': This 2014 collaborative Russian {{novel}} was written by 15 authors. It deals with the [[MultinationalTeam multinational crew]] of the spacecraft ''Ares'', sent to explore the red planet as part of a joint American/Russian/European mission with two crewmembers from each of these blocs. They are actually in a race to overtake the ''Millennium Boat'', a Chinese craft sent to the same destination a little earlier with only two crewmembers. Privately, though, some of the crewmembers on both vessels would much rather work together to ensure that everyone got home safely rather than win at any cost. After all, it's just them out there, with no other living soul for millions of miles. There is a supernatural component to the novel, though, which starts to affect the crew of the ''Ares''.
96* Creator/IsaacAsimov:
97** "Literature/TheCallistanMenace": Half the story takes place on the way to {{UsefulNotes/Jupiter}}, letting us get to know the characters and [[{{Foreshadowing}} setting up the tools needed to resolve the main conflict]].
98** "Literature/TheMartianWay": Travel between Earth or the [[ColonizedSolarSystem colonies]] isn't very [[CasualInterstellarTravel easy]] yet. Most of the story takes place out in space, as the protagonists travel around the solar system. The biggest trip is the inaugural effort of Martian colonists to the rings of {{UsefulNotes/Saturn}}, with the goal of capturing some of the ice and bringing it back to {{UsefulNotes/Mars}}.
99[[/folder]]
100
101[[folder:LiveActionTV]]
102* Season 3 of the hard sci-fi alternate history series ''Series/ForAllMankind'' is about a space race to Mars between NASA, the Soviets, and the private company Helios. Episode 4 "Happy Valley" solely focuses on the travel between Earth and Mars, being a modern and (relatively) more realistic take on this trope's definition.
103* ''Series/SpaceOdysseyVoyageToThePlanets'', a 2004 science-fiction docudrama involving the crewed exploration of several planets in our Solar System in a journey that takes several years and faces hardships like solar radiation exposure.
104[[/folder]]
105
106[[folder:Pinball]]
107* ''Pinball/PinBot'': This game requires the player to advance across the Solar System, from Pluto to the Sun.
108[[/folder]]
109
110[[folder:Radio]]
111* ''Radio/JourneyIntoSpace'':
112** In ''Journey to the Moon'' / ''Operation Luna'', Jet, Lemmy, Doc and Mitch travel from the Earth to UsefulNotes/TheMoon in 1965.
113** In both ''The Red Planet'' and ''The World in Peril'', the crew journey from UsefulNotes/TheMoon to UsefulNotes/{{Mars}}, first in 1971 and then again in 1972.
114[[/folder]]
115
116[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
117* The ''TabletopGame/{{Space 1889}}'' RPG took this trope and ran with it, featuring Victorian-era space colonies -- colonies, as in "Age of European Colonialism" -- on the Moon, Mars, and Venus.
118[[/folder]]
119
120[[folder:Video Games]]
121* ''VideoGame/{{Orbiter}}''
122* ''VideoGame/KerbalSpaceProgram'' is essentially an Interplanetary Voyage Simulator. It uses a physics engine to simulate realistic-but-simplified orbital mechanics and gives you essentially the same limitations that NASA has now (or might have TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture), but once you're aloft, you can explore the solar system to your heart's desire (and the limits of your fuel tanks) and even run across a few [[EasterEgg anomalies]] along the lines of ''2001'' (though they don't actually do anything).
123* ''VideoGame/VoyageInspiredByJulesVerne'', being inspired by, of course, Jules Verne's story ''Literature/FromTheEarthToTheMoon'', involves Michel Ardan crash landing on the moon and encountering Selenites.
124[[/folder]]
125
126[[folder:Web Comics]]
127* The comic ''{{Webcomic/Narbonic}}'' ran a special Sunday feature spread out over a couple years, with a Victorian-era MadScientist Helen Narbon and her minion Dave Davenport taking a rocket to other planets and encountering spacefaring Venusians and Martians. And even the Victorian-era Helen can't escape [[spoiler: the influence of her mother.]]
128* Most of the run of ''Moony the Moon Man'' (the comic is no longer available online, sadly) was taken up with the titular [[LittleGreenMen little green Moon man's]] attempts to build a spaceship to get to Earth, because he was lonely.
129[[/folder]]
130
131[[folder:Western Animation]]
132* The Wallace and Gromit short ''WesternAnimation/AGrandDayOut'' involves a rocket trip to the moon, which is made of green cheese.
133[[/folder]]
134
135[[folder:Other]]
136* Although actual space travel wasn't involved, the infamous "Moon Hoax" article series in the New York ''Sun'' used a super-telescope and elements of this trope to boost circulation in the mid-1800s.
137* The ''Kerbal Space Program'' fanfic ''Fanfic/TheNextFrontier'' may involve interstellar travel, but it's definitely not the [[CasualInterstellarTravel casual or fast]] sort. Travel times just between planets vary from a couple of weeks to several months, and the current state of the art in FasterThanLightTravel gets about one light-year a ''month''.
138[[/folder]]
139
140[[folder:Real Life]]
141* The Apollo program, which probably turned the original conception of this into a DeadHorseTrope.
142* As of 2022, no human has ever gone beyond the Moon. However, several engineering concepts and proposals for human missions to Mars have existed since the 1950s, such as the UsefulNotes/{{NASA}} Design Reference Missions. [[UsefulNotes/SpaceExplorationTechnologiesCorporation SpaceX]] is currently planning to send people to Mars using their reusable rocket system known as "Starship." Missions to other destinations have occasionally been considered, such as HAVOC (High Altitude Venus Operational Concept) and HOPE (Human Outer Planet Exploration), a crewed mission to Jupiter's moon, Callisto.
143[[/folder]]

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