Jules Verne(1828-1905) was a French author and a pioneer of science fiction. In his novels From the Earth to the Moon 1865) and Around the Moon 187o), a kind of space ship is fired at the moon from a 900-foot-long cannon. At one point in their journey, the three travelers are deprived of gravity and float around their small ship. Rockets are used to slow the ship down before landing on the moon. Given the time in which he was writing, Verne's