From the Earth to the Moon · Chapter
The Hymn of the Cannonball explained
The Gun Club's working committee, led by President Barbicane, meets to address the mechanical challenges of the lunar projectile.
What happens
The Gun Club's working committee, led by President Barbicane, meets to address the mechanical challenges of the lunar projectile. J. T. Maston delivers an impassioned speech celebrating the cannonball as a symbol of human achievement. The committee decides on an aluminum projectile with a diameter of nine feet, weighing 19,250 pounds, and costing $173,050. Barbicane also proposes using a telescope on a high mountain to track the projectile.
Themes in this chapter
Scientific Progress and Innovation
The committee's detailed calculations and choice of aluminum for the projectile highlight the era's technological ambition and material science advances.
The Romance of Technology
J. T. Maston's poetic 'hymn' to the cannonball elevates the projectile to a moral and almost spiritual symbol of human power and creativity.
Human Ambition and Exploration
Barbicane's plan to track the projectile with a telescope on a high mountain underscores the drive to extend human observation and knowledge beyond Earth.
Characters to notice
- Impey Barbicane
Presides over the committee meeting, proposes the projectile's dimensions and material, and suggests using a high-altitude telescope to track the projectile.
- J. T. Maston
Serves as secretary of the committee, delivers a lyrical speech on the moral significance of the cannonball, and enthusiastically supports the aluminum projectile.
- General Morgan
Committee member who provides data on previous cannon speeds, including the Rodman Columbiad's 800 yards per second.
- Major Elphinstone
Committee member who questions the cost of aluminum and the weight of the projectile, but ultimately agrees to the design.
Key passages
“A cannonball is to me the most brilliant manifestation of human power, and by creating it man has approached nearest to the Creator!”
J. T. Maston declares that the cannonball represents humanity's greatest achievement, bringing us closer to divine creation.
Maston's lyrical view of the projectile as a moral and spiritual symbol.
“If I succeed in lessening the density of the atmosphere which the moon's light traverses, shall I not render that light more intense?”
Barbicane explains that by placing a telescope on a high mountain, the thinner atmosphere will allow clearer and more magnified views of the moon.
Barbicane's rationale for using a high-altitude telescope to track the projectile.
“A projectile of 108 inches in diameter and 12 inches thick would weigh, if it were made of cast-iron, 67,440 lbs. ; cast in aluminium it would be reduced to 19,250 lbs.”
Barbicane calculates that an aluminum projectile of the same size would weigh less than a third of an iron one.
The committee's decision to use aluminum for its lighter weight.