Back to the Moon Back to the Moon Back to the Moon is a science fiction novel and Homer Hickam's first fictional book. Published in June 1999, Hickam wrote Back to the Moon using insider information he learned from NASA. The prologue of the novel begins with a dramatized account of the second EVA of Apollo 17. Astronaut Jack Schmitt discovers orange soil in Shorty Crater at the very end of the EVA and gathers samples in a race against time to get back to the LEM. Meanwhile, Wernher von Braun is watching the end of the mission on TV with other NASA engineers.
From the Earth to the Moon problem of surviving the incredible acceleration that the explosion would cause. Ardan suggests that Barbicane and Nicholl travel with him in the projectile, and the offer is accepted. In the end, the projectile is successfully launched, but the destinies of the three astronauts are left inconclusive. The sequel, "Around the Moon", deals with what happens to the three men in their travel from the earth to the moon. The novel was adapted as the opera "Le voyage dans la lune" in 1875, with music by Jacques Offenbach. In 1880 the Pall Mall Gazette described Verne’s "Columbiad" as a ‘space-ship’ -