3.2 Ideas and Technologies of Ancient Space Flights
105
of Domingo Gonsales in 1638, and in which a story of Gonsales traveling to the
Moon was described in detail. This pure fantasy and lack of scientific novel were
very popular. It had been translated into many languages to publish, which had a
great impact on arousing people’s interest in space flight and writing space science
fiction. In the same year, John Wilkins (1614−1672), a British clergyman, natural
philosopher and author, published his first book, The Discovery of a World in the
Moon, which was in fact appeared anonymously. In 1640, he also anonymously
published a Discourse concerning a New Planets, and from this time the Discourse
and the Discovery have been published together as a single work. Wilkins is the
founder of the metric system and the first secretary of the British Royal Society. His
work is addressed to general readers rather than experts in the subject, and its aim
is to popularize the view of the universe due to Copernicus and Kepler. He believed
that the Moon was not a shining disk but rather it was a world with a landscape
like that of the Earth and that the Moon was a habitable planet and traveling to the
Moon would be possible one day. Wilkins himself still insisted that by developing a
flying car, people could fly into the air and even to the moon, and predicted that the
technical principle of the flying car would soon be found by scientists. In 1657, a
Voyage to the Moon written by Cyrano de Bergerac (1619−1655), a French satirist
and dramatist, was published posthumously. It is a classic fantasy novel, in which
with a very romantic and rigorous scientific attitude to explore a variety of possible
flight ways, the arguments have a strong logic. Cyrano de Bergerac believed that the
attraction of magnets could be used to achieve lift-off. If a person’s feet were tied
to a magnet and his hands threw another magnet into the air, the person would be
dragged up under the attraction of the thrown magnet; when he rose to the height of
the thrown magnet, he would grasp the magnet with his hands and continued to throw
it up; and then, he was also dragged up to a higher height once again; like this, by
circularly throwing the magnet, he could eventually fly to the Moon. Furthermore,
another Cyrano de Bergerac’s novel on the Voyage to the Sun was also published in
1662, in which the story of a prisoner who escapes from prison and is blown the Sun
country by a whirlwind was told. It was shown once again that the author had a rich
imagination and logical reasoning ability.
In 1703, a flying way of utilizing the idea of catapulting to the Moon was described
in a novel written by David Russen, Voyage to the Moon. In 1705, Daniel Defoe
told an ancient race’s mastery of the lunar flight in his novel, The Consolidator,
the way of which was to utilize the strong flame to drive the spring and wheel
to drive the wings, as well as described various spaceships and legends of lunar
flights. In 1751, a Narrative of the Life and Astonishing Adventures of John Daniel
written by Ralph Morris was published by a pseudonym, in which a flight way with
wings driven by a pressure pump was discussed. In 1752, Francois-Marie Arouet
(pseudonym: Voltaire), a French Enlightenment writer, told a story in his short work
Micromégas, that an inhabitant from the distant planet which circles the star Sirius
and his companion from the Saturn visit to the Earth. In addition, there were many
fantasies of space flight during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. For example,
first flying out of the atmosphere, people could directly fly to the Moon by the lunar
gravity; people imagined that the spacecraft would be driven by electricity. Limited
105
of Domingo Gonsales in 1638, and in which a story of Gonsales traveling to the
Moon was described in detail. This pure fantasy and lack of scientific novel were
very popular. It had been translated into many languages to publish, which had a
great impact on arousing people’s interest in space flight and writing space science
fiction. In the same year, John Wilkins (1614−1672), a British clergyman, natural
philosopher and author, published his first book, The Discovery of a World in the
Moon, which was in fact appeared anonymously. In 1640, he also anonymously
published a Discourse concerning a New Planets, and from this time the Discourse
and the Discovery have been published together as a single work. Wilkins is the
founder of the metric system and the first secretary of the British Royal Society. His
work is addressed to general readers rather than experts in the subject, and its aim
is to popularize the view of the universe due to Copernicus and Kepler. He believed
that the Moon was not a shining disk but rather it was a world with a landscape
like that of the Earth and that the Moon was a habitable planet and traveling to the
Moon would be possible one day. Wilkins himself still insisted that by developing a
flying car, people could fly into the air and even to the moon, and predicted that the
technical principle of the flying car would soon be found by scientists. In 1657, a
Voyage to the Moon written by Cyrano de Bergerac (1619−1655), a French satirist
and dramatist, was published posthumously. It is a classic fantasy novel, in which
with a very romantic and rigorous scientific attitude to explore a variety of possible
flight ways, the arguments have a strong logic. Cyrano de Bergerac believed that the
attraction of magnets could be used to achieve lift-off. If a person’s feet were tied
to a magnet and his hands threw another magnet into the air, the person would be
dragged up under the attraction of the thrown magnet; when he rose to the height of
the thrown magnet, he would grasp the magnet with his hands and continued to throw
it up; and then, he was also dragged up to a higher height once again; like this, by
circularly throwing the magnet, he could eventually fly to the Moon. Furthermore,
another Cyrano de Bergerac’s novel on the Voyage to the Sun was also published in
1662, in which the story of a prisoner who escapes from prison and is blown the Sun
country by a whirlwind was told. It was shown once again that the author had a rich
imagination and logical reasoning ability.
In 1703, a flying way of utilizing the idea of catapulting to the Moon was described
in a novel written by David Russen, Voyage to the Moon. In 1705, Daniel Defoe
told an ancient race’s mastery of the lunar flight in his novel, The Consolidator,
the way of which was to utilize the strong flame to drive the spring and wheel
to drive the wings, as well as described various spaceships and legends of lunar
flights. In 1751, a Narrative of the Life and Astonishing Adventures of John Daniel
written by Ralph Morris was published by a pseudonym, in which a flight way with
wings driven by a pressure pump was discussed. In 1752, Francois-Marie Arouet
(pseudonym: Voltaire), a French Enlightenment writer, told a story in his short work
Micromégas, that an inhabitant from the distant planet which circles the star Sirius
and his companion from the Saturn visit to the Earth. In addition, there were many
fantasies of space flight during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. For example,
first flying out of the atmosphere, people could directly fly to the Moon by the lunar
gravity; people imagined that the spacecraft would be driven by electricity. Limited