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Three bold Americans are to be hurled into space inside a projectile launched from the swamps of Florida. The reason for such foolhardy behaviour? Why to reach the moon, ladies and gentlemen of the empire.

Whilst the intellect of British men tells them that life on the moon, devoid of food, air and water, is impossible, the lunatic Frenchman Jules Verne doesn't seem able to distinguish fact from fiction.

As long ago as the 17th century, luminaries as bright as the Bishop of Chester postulated that the moon might be habitable but such theories have long since been debunked by the Royal Society and other men of science.

But Verne is no stranger to controversy and regularly flouts the laws of science. In another fiction, he describes how men would travel to the depths of the oceans in great underwater ships.

Yet the march of progress can crush even masterpieces. According to men of science, the Americans in the Frenchman's preposterous meandering would suffocate trying to break free of the Earth's gravity.

Even if one succeeded in reaching the moon, one would most likely drown in one of the astral body's great milky oceans or else be burned in one of the fiery lunar volcanoes.

Verne uses all manner of scientific nonsense to confuse the reader but it is clear to any rational man that the moon shall never be conquered.