Ships and sails proper for the heavenly air should be fashioned. Then there will also be people, who do not shrink from the dreary vastness of space.
— Johannes Kepler, letter to Galileo Galilei, 1609.
As soon as somebody demonstrates the art of flying, settlers from our species of man will not be lacking [on the Moon and Jupiter]. . . . Who would have believed that a huge ocean could be crossed more peacefully and safely than the the narrow expanse of the Adriatic, the Baltic Sea or the English Channel? Provide ship or sails adapted to the heavenly breezes, and there will be some who will not fear even that void [of space]. . . . So, for those who will come shortly to attempt this journey, let us establish the astronomy: Galileo, you of Jupiter, I of the Moon.
— Johannes Kepler, letter to Galileo Galilei, 'Conversation with the Messenger from the Stars,' 19 April 1610.
Yet I do seriously and on good grounds affirm it possible to make a flying chariot in which a man may sit and give such a motion unto it as shall convey him through the air. And this perhaps might be made large enough to carry divers men at the same time, together with food for their viaticum and commodities for traffic. It is not the bigness of anything in this kind that can hinder its motion, if the motive faculty be answerable thereunto. We see a great ship swims as well as a small cork, and an eagle flies in the air as well as a little gnat. . . . 'Tis likely enough that there may be means invented of journeying to the Moon; and how happy they shall be that are first successful in this attempt.
— John Wilkins, A Discourse Concerning a New World and Another Planet, book 1, 1640.
The Art of Flying is but newly invented, 'twill improve by degrees, and in time grow perfect; then we may fly as far as the Moon.
— Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, A week's conversation on the plurality of worlds, 1686. (English translation by William Gardiner, 1728.)
I suppose we shall soon travel by air-vessels; make air instead of sea voyages; and at length find our way to the Moon, in spite of the want of atmosphere.
— Lord Byron, 1822
On the subject of stars, all investigations which are not ultimately
reducible to simple visual observations are ... necessarily denied to
us. While we can conceive of the possibility of determining their
shapes, their sizes, and their motions, we shall never be able by any
means to study their chemical composition or their mineralogical
structure ... Our knowledge concerning their gaseous envelopes is
necessarily limited to their existence, size ... and refractive power,
we shall not at all be able to determine their chemical composition or
even their density... I regard any notion concerning the true mean
temperature of the various stars as forever denied to us.
— Auguste Comte, Cours de la Philosophie Positive, 1835. Fourteen years later Kirchhoff discovered the chemical composition of a gas could be deduced from its electromagnetic spectrum.
For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, Argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew,
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue.
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Locksley Hall, 1842.
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