Jules Verne's Lunar Projectile in Space — De la Terre à la Lune Engraving — art by Émile-Antoine Bayard — Autour de la Lune / Around the Moon — 1870s
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Jules Verne's Lunar Projectile in Space — De la Terre à la Lune Engraving

Drawn directly from Jules Verne's 'From the Earth to the Moon' (1865) and its sequel 'Around the Moon' (1870), this masterful wood engraving depicts the bullet-shaped aluminum projectile tumbling through star-filled space with the cratered Moon looming in the upper right. The conical capsule — complete with observation windows and a padded base — carries three men and two dogs on humanity's first imagined voyage beyond Earth. A small floating figure or debris drifts to the right, suggesting the harrowing weightlessness Verne described with scientific precision.

Source: Wikimedia Commons
Decade: 1870s
Country: France
Coolness: 4/10

No ray guns, no monsters — just cold hard science and one very cramped aluminum bullet. Verne kept it classy, but the void is still terrifying.

Public domain. This vintage illustration is free of known copyright restrictions — free to download, share, and reuse for any purpose.

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