French soldier, satirist, and dramatist, whose life has been the basis of many romantic but unhistorical legends. The best-known of them is Edmond Rostand's verse drama Cyrano de Bergerac (1897). Bergerac's major works were two posthumously published accounts of fantastic voyages, VOYAGE DANS LA LUNE (1657) and L'HISTOIRE DES ÉTATS ET EMPIRES DU SOLEIL (1662). According to Arthur C. Clarke, Cyrano must be credited both for first applying the rocket to space travel and, for inventing the ramjet. Cyrano wrote:

"I foresaw very well, that the vacuity that would happen in the icosahedron, by reason of the sunbeams, united by the concave glasses, would, to fill up the space, attract a great abundance of air, whereby my box would be carried up; and that proportionable as I mounted, the rushing wind that should force it through the hole, could not rise to the roof, but that furiously penetrating the machine, it must needs force it upon high."

His fastest mode of travel was horse, I have flown to and from France a few times at 35,000 feet and speeds he could not imagine...

:) 1662- that is 344 years ago... now lets assume that 40 years has been the average lifespan in that time- that means that he wrote it just 8.6 human lifetimes ago... Lets call it 9.... 9 generations ago you may well have had an ancestor that read those works... maybe that ancestor was delayed in a cafe because he had to finish the tale, and because of that he bumped into a maiden that became your greatnth grandmother....

The butterfly effect comes to mind....

Anyways, three centuries after he wrote that, the world heard these words: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" ...

Just nine lifetimes ago- amazing isnt it? Either we are an uncontrolled disease that will burn itself out, or we are going to be something very grand- I have to hope for the latter...