Moon in science fiction

The Moon has been a setting in fiction since at least the works of the ancient Greek writers Antonius Diogenes and Lucian of Samosata; the former's Of the Wonderful Things Beyond Thule has been lost and the latter's True History from the second century CE is a satire of fanciful travellers' tales. It was not until Johannes Kepler's novel Somnium was posthumously released in 1634 that the subject of travelling to the Moon was given a serious treatment in fiction. Building on Kepler's thoughts, and similar speculations by Francis Bacon on flying to the Moon in his 1627 work Sylva sylvarum, Francis Godwin expanded on the idea in the 1638 novel The Man in the Moone. Across the centuries that followed, numerous authors penned serious or satirical works depicting voyages to the Moon, including Cyrano de Bergerac's novel Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon which was posthumously released in 1657, Daniel Defoe's 1705 novel The Consolidator, Edgar Allan Poe's 1835 short story "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall", the 1835 newspaper series called the "Great Moon Hoax" by Richard Adams Locke, Jules Verne's 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon, and H. G. Wells' 1901 novel The First Men in the Moon. George Griffith's 1901 novel A Honeymoon in Space takes place in part on the Moon and is perhaps the first depiction of a space suit in fiction. The first science fiction film, Georges Méliès' Le voyage dans la lune from 1902, depicts a lunar voyage. == Life on the Moon ==

" By the latter part of the 1800s, it was clear that the Moon was devoid of life, making depictions of lunar lifeforms and societies lack credibility. A number of authors circumvent the issue by placing lunar life underneath the Moon's surface, including Wells in the aforementioned The First Men in the Moon and Edgar Rice Burroughs in the 1926 novel The Moon Maid. Others confine lunar life to the past, either depicting the remnants of a lunar civilization that has since gone extinct as in W. S. Lach-Szyrma's 1887–1893 series "Letters from the Planets" (sequel to the 1883 novel Aleriel, or A Voyage to Other Worlds), Edgar Fawcett's 1895 novel The Ghost of Guy Thyrle, and the aforementioned A Honeymoon in Space, or by time travelling to the past to encounter lunar life as in the 1932 short story "The Moon Era" by Jack Williamson. Some works also place lunar life solely on the far side of the Moon. The earliest depiction of life on the Moon in Lucian's True History included three-headed horse-vultures and vegetable birds. The near side of the Moon in Kepler's Somnium is inhabited by the earliest human-like lunar life in fiction, whereas the far side is inhabited by serpentine creatures. Based on exobiological considerations, Kepler provided both with adaptations to the month-long cycle of day and night on the Moon. The 1938 short story "Magician of Dream Valley" by Raymond Z. Gallun portrays energy-based life on the Moon, as does the 1960 short story "The Trouble with Tycho" by Clifford D. Simak. The titular mission of the 2011 film Apollo 18 is a secret project to investigate alien life in the form of lunar rocks. == Moon landings ==

marked the end of science fiction stories about the first Moon landing. Following the end of World War II, several literary works appeared depicting science fiction authors' visions of the first Moon landing. Among these were Robert A. Heinlein's 1950 short story "The Man Who Sold the Moon" about an entrepreneur seeking to finance the endeavor, Lester del Rey's 1956 novel Mission to the Moon, and Pierre Boulle's 1964 novel Garden on the Moon where the first Moon landing is by Japan and intentionally a one-way trip such that no method of returning astronauts to Earth needs to be devised. One of the last such stories was William F. Temple's 1966 novel Shoot at the Moon; following the actual first Moon landing by Apollo 11 in 1969, stories of fictional first Moon landings fell out of favour to be replaced by stories of lunar colonization. and the 1968 film Countdown which reuses the idea of getting to the Moon more quickly by not waiting until a return trip is feasible from Garden on the Moon.'' == Colonization of the Moon ==

as envisaged by NASA An early example of colonization of the Moon is found in The Lunar Trilogy of Polish writer Jerzy Żuławski, written between 1901 and 1911. There, a small colony is founded by survivors of the marooned exploration party. Colonization of the Moon is depicted in Murray Leinster's 1950s Joe Kenmore series starting with the novel Space Platform, Larry Niven's 1980 novel The Patchwork Girl, and Roger MacBride Allen's 1988 novel Farside Cannon, among others. The Moon is terraformed in a handful of works including the 1991 novel Reunion by John Gribbin and Marcus Chown. Lunar colonies are also used as military bases in several works. Heinlein's 1947 novel Rocket Ship Galileo—upon which the aforementioned Destination Moon was loosely based—depicts the discovery of a secret Nazi German colony on the Moon upon the arrival of what was thitherto thought to be the first crewed lunar landing. Leinster's 1957 novel City on the Moon portrays a US nuclear missile base on the Moon which functions as a deterrent, as does Allen Steele's 1996 alternate history novel The Tranquillity Alternative. The social structure and governance of fictional lunar colonies varies. Heinlein's aforementioned The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress and his 1985 novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls portray lunar societies based on libertarian ideals such as laissez-faire capitalism, while the 1992 novel Steel Beach by John Varley depicts a post-scarcity society where the central authority guarantees both jobs for all who wish to work and access to necessities such as air, food, and heating. The lunar colony in the 1991 novel Lunar Descent by Allen Steele is inhabited by manual labourers engaged in space mining to extract resources from the lunar surface. The degenerated colonists of Żuławski's Lunar Trilogy develop a religion worshipping Earth, and welcome a returning Earth astronaut as a Messiah. ==See also==