Jules Verne was a French writer, whose stories are well known world wide. He is often called the "Father of Science Fiction". His stories were about inventions which were far ahead of his time.

Jules Verne was born in 1828 and died in 1905.He made a name for himself with travellers' tales - stories which tell about the adventures people have on journeys. In his life time he wrote 54 major novels which were about science fiction.

Jules Verne looked at the inventions which had been made in his own life time and then added to them his visions and dreams for the future. He was able to invent a future that did not exist until well into this century. Jules Verne is one of those authors that make you wonder if time machines have been invented after all.

Some of Jules Verne's books are:

"20,000 Leagues Under the Sea". This predicted humans living and working for very long periods in the deep oceans.

"From the Earth to the Moon" which amazingly predicted space travel and later a landing on the moon.

This picture is an illustration from a very early copy of "From the Earth to the Moon". Many people think that the landing capsule looks like that of Apollo 13. Verne predicted many things which were later part of the Apollo projects. For example, the splashdown point in Verne's book was just a few miles away from the actual splashdown point of Apollo 8 ... and the moon capsule was launched from Florida, just a few miles from the actual location of Cape Canaveral.

The launch of Verne's craft was preceded by an actual by-the-second countdown using an accurate electric clock; its mass, approximately 10,000 kg. was very close to the actual mass of the Apollo command module. Verne's capsule also had three astronauts on board (two of them American and one Frenchman, in the spirit of international cooperation); it used a chemical system to generate oxygen and another to extract carbon dioxide during the trip and it made a slingshot trip (named Free Return Trajectory a century later) around the Moon in order to return to the Earth.

"Around the World in 80 days" must have encouraged many people in the last century to travel internationally. Even today, it can be a challenge to achieve Jules Verne's journey in his time limit.

"Journey to the Centre of the Earth" tells how a group of people tried to discover the secrets inside the Earth's core.