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“Certainely there are yet many things left to discovery, and it cannot be any inconvenience for us, to maintaine a new truth or rectifie and ancient errour.”

Wilkins may have been wrong about the possibility of life on the moon, but he was definitely on to something. 

A Jacobean clergyman, founder of the Royal Society, and brother-in-law to Oliver Cromwell, Wilkins’s writings not only helped to bring the science of astronomy to the general public, he also arguably started the space race. 

Wilkins, John. The discovery of a vvorld in the moone. Or, A discourse tending, to prove, that ‘tis probable there may be another habitable world in that planet. London: Printed by E.G. for Michael Sparke and Edward Forrest, 1638.