Reader\'s Digest Australia - 07.2019

50TH ANNIVERSARY LUNAR LANDING

36 | July• 2019

a Frenchman. The dimensions of
Verne’s capsule and the real one
were startlingly close. Verne’s
cylindro-conical aluminium shell
was 4.5 metres high and 2.7 metres
in diameter; the Apollo command
module, 3.2 metres
high and 3.9 metres in
diameter. The blast-off
sites, remarkably, were
almost identical: Verne
chose a location near
the 27 degree latitude in
Florida – only about 225
kilometres west of Cape
Kennedy. In the Verne
narrative, Texas fought
to the last moment for
the honour of becoming
the launching site; in
fact, Texas was the site
of Mission Control.
Initial velocity for the
Verne craft was estimat-
ed at 36,000 feet (10,972
metres) per second; af-
ter the firing of Apollo
11’s third-stage engine,
velocity was 35,533 feet
per second.
Verne gave his capsule
97 hours, 13 minutes, 20
seconds to reach the moon. Apollo’s
time was 103 hours, 30 minutes.
Verne’s capsule orbited the moon
several times, often at the same height
flown by the Apollo command ship.
Spacemen in both capsules expe-
rienced weightlessness. Both took

numerous photographs and made

observations of the lunar surface,

and the Verne men even charted the

Sea of Tranquillity where Neil Arm-

strong and Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin were

to take their fabulous stroll. Even

the conclusions of the

trip were unbelievably

alike. In both cases the

capsules splashed down

in the Pacific, and the

spacemen were picked

up by an American war-

ship and returned to the

US mainland where they

received coast-to-coast

acclaim.

How could Verne’s

prophecy have been so

accurate? The answer is

not that he was either a

clairvoyant or mystic.

He was a remarkable

master of science fiction,

writing in a climate that

challenged scientific

imagination.

In the mid-19th cen-

tury, the steam engine

and other products of

science were begin-

ning to open the eyes

of perceptive people to the fact that

the world was undergoing profound

change. Verne was one of them, and

he translated his ideas of the future

into adventure stories. He wrote

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under

the Sea before the submarine was

Verne inspired young

people to dream about

going to the moon

ILLUSTRATIONS: GETTY IMAGESILLUSTRATIONS: GETTY IMAGES