Balloon Trip to the Moon - Only 193 Years in the Making

For only $75,000 balloon trips to the moon are being offered. Will it actually work? Check out this video. Technology has finally caught up to a science fiction writer who described of these types of trips in 1820.

Years before Edgar Allan Poe' popular "[Balloon Hoax]" tale, another was published that not only sent the first earthling to the moon in a balloon, but when he arrives, he meets the first lunarian whose name was Zuloc.

What was the name of the first sci-fi short story of a trip to the moon in a balloon and who wrote it? You can find the story and my thoughts on who the author was in Mesaerion: The Best Science Fiction Stories 1800-1849.

Man in Balloon Attempt Eerily Similar to 1835 Science Fiction Stories

When I hear of the recent failed attempt by a North Carolina man to cross the Atlantic Ocean with a copse of balloons, it brings to mind the year of 1835 when people on both sides of the Atlantic had dreams of crossing the ocean in hot air balloons. Perhaps some of us still have that wild-eyed fascination with balloons. In 1835, writers latched onto this public enthusiasm to create sci-fi tales where the balloons went ever higher, with some reaching as far as the moon. The stories were: “Leaves from an Aeronaut” by Willis Gaylord Clark; “Great Astronomical Discoveries Lately Made by Sir John Herschel, L.L.D. F.R.S. &C. at the Cape of Good Hope” by Richard Adams Locke; “Glimpses of Other Worlds” by Thomas Charles Morgan; and “The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall” by Edgar Allan Poe. None of these stories made the cut in Mesaerion: The Best Science Fiction Stories 1800-1849 (www.andrewbarger.com/bestsciencefictionstories1880.html), but follow the link to see which classic sci-fi stories did.