Corpus Christi is discussed as a possible site, and so is Galveston Bay. He discusses Brownsville as a possible launch site (interesting that Space X is now locating a launch facility there). It would have to be below the 28th parallel. So how does Texas factor into this prophecy? Well, Verne calculated that the best place from which to launch such a shot at the moon would be either Florida or Texas. Even the physics of Verne’s moon voyage were impressively correct for his time (except for the intolerable g-forces that would have been experienced by the people in the bullet capsule). It has room for three people in it, just like the real lunar capsule that would come 100 years later.

Now, the bullet looks amazingly like the Apollo Capsule. And it was actually a moon shot because in the book, characters attempt to build an enormous cannon and fire a huge “bullet” at the moon. Well, his book, From the Earth to the Moon, concerns a moon shot. He is often considered to be the father of modern science fiction. This is the same Jules Verne who wrote Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Around the World in Eighty Days. The fact that Houston was so central to the success of the achievement was prophesied, in a way, 100 years before, by Jules Verne, in his novel, From the Earth to the Moon.

This is just a lead into a more fascinating connection between Texas and the moon landing. The words that matter are those that officially announced the safe landing of The Eagle on the moon, and of those words, the first one was “Houston.” Another way to put it is the first phone call from the moon was placed to Houston.īut this is not the centerpiece of our story today. The first word uttered on the moon was “Houston.” That was the first word of the longer phrase uttered by Buzz Aldrin: “Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed.” I know there are those who say that there were other jargon words uttered first in the process of landing such as “contact light,” but that’s a mere technicality.

From the earth to the moon verne