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Re: Jules Verne cannon

From: <spaceart~at~att.net>
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 12:37:56 +0000
To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>

I, too, have always thought that Verne has been over-criticized for his giant cannon.

First, Verne had to face the problem of credibility: he needed a scheme for getting his projectile to the moon that would seem plausible to his readers. It's obvious that he was perfectly familiar with rockets and their potential (he was one of the very few to fully realize that they would operate in a vacuum...a fact that eluded even the NY Times when it criticized Robert Goddard 50 years later)---but he surely was just as aware of their shortcomings. The rocket at the time Verne was writing had been all but abandoned as a military weapon: they were inefficient and unreliable. At the same time, tremendous advances were being made in the development of artillery (as Verne takes some pains to detail in the book). I think it really came down to a matter of what his readers would swallow: they would believe a huge cannon, they would have laughed at rockets. The notion of using a giant cannon also fit in with the satirical theme of the novel, since it was constructed by a group o
 f bore
d munitions manufacturers.

There is pleny of evidence in the novel to suggest that Verne was perfectly aware of the shortcomings of launching human beings from a huge cannon. He creates a character as a proxy for the sceptical reader and has him voice all of the objections a canny reader might raise---and then has all of those objections answered authoritatively (or at least with so much conviction that they sound authoritative) by Barbicane. Verne has a test projectile launched, with animals on board. He has them survive for the subliminal effect this has on the reader's acceptance of the success of the full-scale projectile. He equips the projectile with shock absorbers, he has his astronauts knocked senseless by the launch, etc. etc....All, I think, in order to got his reader to accept the concept of the giant cannon.

RM

--
Black Cat Studios
http://www.black-cat-studios.com
 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "norman wolcott" <nwolcott2ster~at~gmail.com>
> I don't think  we should be too hard on Verne for using a cannon,
> particularly since gas guns were found to have useful applications in space
> exploration.particularly for eliminating the booster rocket. I have a
> newspaper clipping, May 11, 1959 from Dr. L.M. Levitt, director of the
> Frannklin Institute which states:
> 
> "They (Huges Aircraft ) propose drilling a giant shaft 5000 to 20000 feet
> deep...As the missile travels up the shaft, sensitive switches would ignite
> gas generators which would keep a constant pressure behind the
> missile...Thus the booster rockets making up as much as30% of the takeoff
> weight can be liminated...if something goes wrong while the missile is still
> in the launching shaft it will fall back on a cushiion of air and not be
> destroyed. ..The more one sees what is being done today, the more one
> realizes how astute were the space pioneers of other days. While their
> knowledge of physical principles left a lot to be desired, the bold
> imaginative concepts they generated continue to have a tremendous
> influence."
> 
> NASA did successful tests with the gas gun in the 1960-1970 period which
> were succesful in reachiing low earth orbit. The idea was to reduce costs
> for orbiting sattelites.
> 
> Also enough people were worried about the "Bagdad Gas Gun" proposed for
> ICBM's to elimiinate its inventor in the 1980's.
> 

attached mail follows:

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To:    JVForum <jvf~at~math.technion.ac.il>

I don't think  we should be too hard on Verne for using a cannon, particularly since gas guns were found to have useful applications in space exploration.particularly for eliminating the booster rocket. I have a newspaper clipping, May 11, 1959 from Dr. L.M. Levitt, director of the Frannklin Institute which states:

 

"They (Huges Aircraft ) propose drilling a giant shaft 5000 to 20000 feet deep...As the missile travels up the shaft, sensitive switches would ignite gas generators which would keep a constant pressure behind the missile...Thus the booster rockets making up as much as30% of the takeoff weight can be liminated...if something goes wrong while the missile is still in the launching shaft it will fall back on a cushiion of air and not be destroyed. ..The more one sees what is being done today, the more one realizes how astute were the space pioneers of other days. While their knowledge of physical principles left a lot to be desired, the bold imaginative concepts they generated continue to have a tremendous influence."

 

NASA did successful tests with the gas gun in the 1960-1970 period which were succesful in reachiing low earth orbit. The idea was to reduce costs for orbiting sattelites.

 

Also enough people were worried about the "Bagdad Gas Gun" proposed for ICBM's to elimiinate its inventor in the 1980's.

 

 

Received on Tue 28 Mar 2006 - 14:38:06 IST

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