The Man Who Invented the Future

Joe Schembrie marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Jules Verne I missed it yesterday, but March 24 was the 100th anniversary of the death of Jules Verne. If you're thinking "Huh?!?" right now, just go read Joe Schembrie's essay, "Jules Who?" An excerpt: "...Verne's two novels of space travel, From Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon... foretold of NASA's actual lunar voyage a century later with surreal accuracy. For example, Verne's space-shell resembles the Apollo 8 Command Module and even weighs the same. Both real and fictional vehicles carried a crew of three. Verne's space-shell was launched from a location in Florida just one hundred and fifty miles from where Apollo 8 was launched, and the actual mission splashed down in the South Pacific just two and a half miles from where Verne's fictional mission returned. " Heck, don't just read Schembrie's essay, go read (or re-read) some of Verne's prescient 19th Century novels.