"The Brick Moon" is a novella by American writer

Edward Everett Hale Edward Everett Hale (April 3, 1822 – June 10, 1909) was an American author, historian, and Unitarian minister, best known for his writings such as " The Man Without a Country", published in '' Atlantic Monthly'', in support of the Union ...

, published serially in ''

The Atlantic Monthly ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'' starting in 1869. It is a work of speculative fiction containing the first known depiction of the launch of an artificial

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioi ...

Synopsis

"The Brick Moon" is presented as a journal. It describes the construction and launch into

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such as ...

of a sphere, 200 feet in diameter, built of bricks. The device is intended as a navigational aid, but is accidentally launched with people aboard. They survive, and so the story also provides the first known fictional description of a space station. The author even correctly surmised the idea of needing four satellites visible above the horizon for navigation, as in modern-day

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...

Publication history

"The Brick Moon" was first released serially in three parts in ''

'' in 1869. A fourth part, entitled "Life on the Brick Moon", was also published in ''The Atlantic Monthly'' in 1870. It was collected as the title work in Hale's anthology ''The Brick Moon and Other Stories'' in 1899.Smith, Delbert D. ''Communication Via Satellite: A Vision in Retrospect''. Boston, MA: A. W. Sijthoff, 1976: 16.

Influence

In 1877,

Asaph Hall Asaph Hall III (October 15, 1829 – November 22, 1907) was an American astronomer who is best known for having discovered the two moons of Mars, Deimos and Phobos, in 1877. He determined the orbits of satellites of other planets and of double s ...

discovered the two moons of Mars. He wrote to Hale, comparing the smaller Martian moon, Deimos, to the Brick Moon. In the ''Long Earth'' series by

Terry Pratchett Sir Terence David John Pratchett (28 April 1948 – 12 March 2015) was an English humourist, satirist, and author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his '' Discworld'' series of 41 novels. Pratchett's first no ...

and Stephen Baxter a space station built in "The Gap" (where the Earth is missing) is named "the Brick Moon". It appears in two of the novels: '' The Long War'' (2013) and '' The Long Mars'' (2014).

References

External links

* 1869 American novels American speculative fiction novellas Works originally published in The Atlantic (magazine) Fictional space stations 1860s science fiction works {{1860s-sf-novel-stub