In the 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon by the French novelist Jules Verne, American Civil War veterans invent a huge cannon capable of launching a projectile that can carry three men to the lunar surface. The book, and the film adaptation that later followed, took hold of the popular imagination and inspired generations to come. A little over a century after Verne published his story, three Americans astronauts perched atop a rocket and successfully completed the first manned mission to the moon.