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"My feeling is that the chance of our surviving into the twenty-first century as working civilization is less than fifty percent but greater than zero."
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In Jules Verne's famous 1867 novel, From the Earth to the Moon Impey Barbicane, President of the Baltimore Gun Club, made this statement to the assembled members:
Well! starting from this principle, I ask myself whether,
supposing sufficient apparatus could be obtained constructed
upon the conditions of ascertained resistance, it might not be possible to project a shot up to the moon?
...I have looked at
the question in all its bearings, I have resolutely attacked it,
and by incontrovertible calculations I find that a projectile
endowed with an initial velocity of 12,000 yards per second, and
aimed at the moon, must necessarily reach it. I have the honor,
my brave colleagues, to propose a trial of this little experiment."
Verne goes into considerable detail regarding the Columbiad, the cannon that will generate enough force to put a projectile carrying men into orbit.
Verne had the right idea - it would take a substantial acceleration to free onself of Earth's gravitational pull. However, recent calculations have shown that, rather than achieving the 12,000 yards per second required (a correct calculation!), the Columbiad and it's charge of powder would only have accelerated the projectile to approximately 1,200 yards per second. This would send the projectile 12 miles into the air - before falling back to Earth. Comment/Join this discussion ( 1 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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