Exploring Space [antikvár]

Storybook Space-flightAlthough we think of rockets and space-travel as very new, men have dreamed for centuries about flying. They longed to soar and glide with the ease and grace of the seagull and the swallow.A Greek writer nearly two thousand years ago wrote about a ship which was caught in a water-spout and carried up to the moon. Later he described how another daring explorer made a pair of wings and set out upon a voyage to the moon from the top of Mount Olympus, the home of the old Greek gods.For a long time after this we do not find much about journeys into space. Then the telescope was invented and men began to learn more about the sky. A famous astronomer, named Kepler, discovered the laws which control the movements of the planets and he wrote a book telling about a voyage to the moon. Kepler's hero travelled there by the simplest way of all, by magic! He knew that there was no air between the earth and the moon and could think of no other way of getting there.In 1638 a bishop, named Francis Godwin, told of a traveller who was carried to the moon by ten wild swans, a strange flight which you can see in the picture opposite.A French author, Jules Verne, who lived a hundred years ago, wrote a book entitled 'From the Earth to the Moon.' His voyager was fired from a great gun, but Jules Verne forgot two very important things. His traveller would have been killed by the explosion, or roasted by the heat produced as the great shell rushed through the air.