A Trip to the Moon
What would it be like to visit the Moon?
The first major fictional cinematic film exploring this enduring
transcultural fantasy was titled
Le voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon) and made in 1902,
becoming one of the most
popular movies
of the early years of the twentieth century.
The silent film starred the filmmaker
Georges Melies himself and portrayed a
club of astronomers voyaging to the Moon and back.
Pictured above is a frame from the movie that has become an enduring
icon for both film and space.
Alluding to a
bullseye trajectory,
the Man in the Moon
is caricatured as being struck by the
human-built spaceship.
The entire 14-minute film is now
freely
available.
Visiting the Moon remained a
very popular topic even 67 years later in
1969 when humans first made an
actual voyage.