Introduction

Humanity has dreamt of traveling beyond our cradle and into space since, at least, the time of the Roman conquest of Greece, after the Battle of Corinth in 146BC. In what is considered the earliest known fiction about travel to outer space, alien life-forms and interplanetary warfare, Lucian of Samosata wrote a satirical piece in 150AD called True History. In part of this story a company of adventuring heroes are swept upwards in a giant waterspout shortly after sailing westward through the Pillars of Hercules (today known as the Strait of Gibraltar). After seven days and seven nights, they arrive on the Moon to find themselves embroiled in a war between the King of the Moon and the King of the Sun over the Morning Star (Venus). The Sun wins.