A little wonder, every day

Jules Verne and the Apollo flight

Henri de Montaut’s 1865 engraving depicting the fictional Columbiad cannon construction from Verne’s novel; it is a period illustration, not a photograph of a real launch. Original: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Delaterrelalun00vern_0099_1.png. Public domain; no attribution required, courtesy credit “Henri de Montaut, 1865, via Wikimedia Commons” retained.

Apollo 11’s Saturn V lifting off with Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin aboard on 16 July 1969. Original: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Apollo_11_Saturn_V_lifting_off_on_July_16,_1969.jpg. NASA; public domain U.S. government work. Courtesy credit: NASA / Wikimedia Commons. No edits.

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Henri de Montaut’s 1865 engraving depicting the fictional Columbiad cannon construction from Verne’s novel; it is a period illustration, not a photograph of a real launch. Original: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Delaterrelalun00vern_0099_1.png. Public domain; no attribution required, courtesy credit “Henri de Montaut, 1865, via Wikimedia Commons” retained.

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In his 1865 novel *From the Earth to the Moon*, Jules Verne imagined three travelers heading toward the Moon in a projectile fired from a giant cannon in Florida. 104 calendar years later, Apollo 11 also launched from Florida with three astronauts aboard—but on a Saturn V rocket, not from a cannon. This is an interesting similarity in the premise, not an exact engineering prediction.