From the Earth to the Moon

Why it’s on the list: A Baltimore gun club, bored after the American Civil War, resolves to fire a projectile at the moon, and most of Jules Verne’s novel is the project — the ballistics, the funding, a Florida launch site chosen for its latitude, an enormous cannon, and the late decision to put people inside the shell. Less a story than a feasibility study with characters, which is why engineers keep reading it.

Where I heard about it

• a16z’s infrastructure team — on the a16z Infra Reading List, in the Sci-fi — Classics section (A tier), under Verne’s selected works. They cite this one specifically for its “fairly accurate orbital calculations,” part of their case that Verne “researched everything obsessively.” The coincidences with Apollo — a Florida launch, a three-man crew, an ocean splashdown — are why it is quoted at every space-company all-hands.

Connections

• a16z Infra Reading List — where this is listed, in the classics tier.
• Jules Verne — the author.
• Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Around the World in Eighty Days — the other three Verne titles on the list.
• The Martian — the modern version of the same trick: fiction whose tension is entirely engineering, which Kyle has read.
• Science Fiction — the genre.