JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

Massive, monster cannons have existed for many years in idealized and theoretical, speculative worlds, like Tom Swift and his Monster Cannon.  In the history of early imaginary big guns H.G. Wells’ Babel-like space cannon (pictured below in a still from the movie Things to Come,1936), an adaptation his The Shape of Tings to Come (from 1931) is monumentally fabulous –1500 feet tall, with what looks like a  750′ base, all of which launched a 75′ tall capsule beyond the Earth’s gravitational pull with a spectacular explosiveness that would’ve made its occupants into jelly.  (Tangentally-speaking here the launching of an object to escape the Earth’s gravity didn’t occur until 1946 when the highly-problematic but nevertheless-genius Fritz Zwicky fashioned a device to an experimental V-2 and via an electric explosive charge punched some object into space.)

In any event D.W.F. Mayer registered his objections to the Wells spaceship in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society from February 1937, which you can read below.