Always fancied un voyage dans l’espace (a space travel), but never was able to achieve it?
Then how about experiencing such a fantastic journey—with the city of Paris as your “tremplin” (“launching pad”)?                                       

The “Space Mountain Paris” was le fruit de l’imagination of the prominent French writer Jules Verne and the magic world of the American Disney!

It was the time of la guerre de secession (Civil War) in America, pitting le Nord (the North) against le Sud (the South.) During this war, the invention known back then as “columbiad” was a tremendously powerful canon (cannon), and was seen by American Generals and soldiers alike as the ultimate weapon that could secure victory to their side.

On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, however, a French scientist and prominent futurologue (futurologist) by the name of Jules Verne had a brilliant idea about these cannons.

Instead of serving as des engins de mort (machines of death), he thought they could quite littérallement (literally) propel humanity into the following century.

Comment (how)?

By sending humans “de la Terre à la Lune”, meaning “from Earth to the Moon”—And “De la Terre à la Lune” is precisely the title of the Sci-Fi book he published in the aftermath of the American Civil War, in 1865!

                   The manned projectile to be launched onto the moon by the “columbiad” canon spatial (space gun)


The hero of Jules Verne’s space travel novel was actually based on his personal friend, Félix Nadar, a balloonist and photographer, who also inspired him the novel “Cinq semaines en ballon” (“Five Weeks in a Balloon”)

Fast forward to the 20^th century: After the Apollo 11 mission was deemed a success, l’astronaute Neil Armstrong saluted the pioneering genius of Jules Verne.

Several years later, when Euro Disneyland opened a park in Paris, the idea of constructing an attraction based on the ideas of Jules Verne’s “De la Terre à la Lune” finally emerged.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Malheureusement (unfortunately) for the fans of the genre, 10 years later, in 2005, most of the Jules Verne’s references were removed, ceding the place to an “upgraded” version of the attraction: “Space Mountain Paris: Mission 2.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you happen to go to Paris, and want to experience a typically Jules Verne attraction, you can always give a shot to “Les Mystères du Nautilus“, which is based on another famous novel of his by the name of “Vingt mille lieues sous les mers“ (“Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea“), featuring the all-too-famous Captain Nemo!

                                                    
Jules Verne’s widely famous “Vingt mille lieues sous les mers“ (“Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea“) was published in 1870, only five years after “From the Earth to the Moon.”

Voyage en espace (Space Travel) from Paris ! is a post from: French Language Blog