Jules Verne's Lunar Projectile in Space – Autour de la Lune, 1870
A giant conical space projectile — fired from a massive cannon to carry passengers to the Moon — drifts through the star-filled void, its porthole revealing a passenger's face peering out. Beside it floats a spectral, radiant figure, arms outstretched amid rays of light, possibly a corpse ejected into space. This engraving illustrates Jules Verne's pioneering concept of human spaceflight via ballistic capsule, a proto-rocket science fiction vision decades ahead of its time.
A man floating dead in space next to a bullet-shaped rocket headed for the Moon?! That's the most thrilling picture I've ever seen in a book — I'd give anything to be on that projectile! Verne really knows how to make science feel dangerous and grand.
“E.L. [monogram lower left], [engraver signature lower right, partially legible: possibly 'Hildibrand' or similar]”
