Green Cheese?

The other night I watched The Right Stuff, a great film based on Tom Wolfe's book of the same name. The account of the breaking of the sound barrier, allowing NASA to begin their astronaut program, which would eventually lead to the goal of going to the moon. The first seven astronauts were chosen, and one by one, sat atop a rocket to be pushed beyond the atmosphere into space. By today's technology, they sat in a tin can, hurtled off the top of a bomb, heading out with very little assurance that they would ever come back. Took special men for sure, men with "the right stuff".

Of course, the dream of understanding and exploring the heavens began in ancient times, but by the 18th Century, the telescope was being further and further sophisticated, giving a better and clearer picture of what's "out there". In 1704, Isaac Newton described a telescope in the published "Optick", but in 1720, John Hadley built the first really useful reflecting telescope. 

The early 1700's found mathematicians understanding gravitational pull of the Earth, Moon and planets. Here are some accomplishments: 

In 1700 Boyle, Lord of Orrery, invented a hard-driven model of the solar system

In 1719 Maraldi explained the changes of Mars polar caps as ice.

In 1757 Clairaut fixes the best ever mass of Moon and planets.

In 1763 Tobias Mayer published his "British Mariner's Guide" helping sailors fix location by the stars. 

In 1775 Mayer issues the first topographic map of the Moon!

In 1791 Banneker improves calculations of eclipses and the Moon's phases.

All this knowledge allowed us to eventually step foot on the Moon, realizing that it was not made of green cheese, but the stuff dreams are made of!