Literature to imagine the conquest of the Moon

The new Artemis mission to the Moon mobilizes a whole imagination. Because human beings first dreamed of going there, before inventing the means to achieve it. One of the very first novels devoted to a voyage on this star is written by a Frenchman: Cyrano de Bergerac, Comic History of the States and Empires of the Moon, published in 1655. Very poetic, the text is the first to evoke a rocket to make the trip.

After him, the other great pioneer known throughout the world and read, long after, by NASA engineers, is none other than Jules Verne. In From the Earth to the moon (1865) and Around the Moon (1865) his heroes go around the star then their capsule returns and lands. A ship comes to pick them up. It’s a nice anticipation of the return of Apollo XI, in 1969.

Apollo XI with Armstrong, the first man on the Moon who launches: “One small step for a man, one giant leap for humanity”. His companion, Buzz Aldrin says the landscape is “a magnificent desolation”. But this word “desolation” was written nearly fifteen years earlier, under the pen of Hergé in We walked on the moon. Tintin depicted a lunar landscape “of death”.

In short, the space adventure shows that scientists can find inspiration in letters and the arts.