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Manned Flight to the Moon

Verne was a master at predicting what
lay ahead. In 1864, he wrote From the Earth
to the Moon. The book tells about a flight
to the moon. This was 105 years before the
first manned mission to the moon reached
its destination.

Verne’s mission has a three-man team.
That’s the same number used in real moon
landings. His space travelers are sent from
Florida. NASA sends astronauts into space
from there, too. The size of Verne’s space
capsule is also very close to that of the real
Apollo spacecraft.

Not all the ideas that Verne produced
are true. His space capsule is shot from
a cannon. Today, rocket engines propel
modern spacecraft.

A Saturn V rocket blasts off for the moon. On July
20, 1969, the world watched Apollo 11 astronaut
Neil Armstrong step onto the moon’s surface. They
heard him say in a collected voice, “That’s one small
step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

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