The professor and the policeman's beers are equally symbolic, Pirko says - Red Stripe with its Jamaican pedigree, and Blue Moon striving for craft beer credibility, though it's actually made by Coors.

NPR: What Brands Will Be Served At Beer Summit?

In his version (From the Earth to the Moon, 1865, and its sequel, All Around the Moon, 1870), an aluminum craft launched from central Florida achieves a speed of 24, 500 miles per hour, circles the moon and splashes down in the Pacific.

FORBES: Eerily Prescient

One of these, run in collaboration with the American navy, was Clementine, a craft that orbited the moon.

ECONOMIST: A transient success

It took 60 hours to get to the Moon so we waited until the craft was in orbit and then we had a mad rush to get from Launch Control to Mission Control (in Houston, Texas).

BBC: Neil Armstrong in 1969

Their craft actually made 10 orbits of the Moon before returning home.

BBC: Manned flight around Moon considered

Lasers beamed from landing craft could, he says, power rovers in sunless areas of the moon or Mars, such as craters where water might be found.

ECONOMIST: Monitor