Destination Moon

In honor of the first moon landing that happened on this day in 1969, I'm reviewing Destination Moon by Georges Remi Herge. It was first written 19 years before the landing and translated a decade before. Destination Moon starts where Land of Black Gold ends. Tintin is home but is soon sent to Syldavia to witness a test flight of a moon rocket that will go around to the darkside of the Moon and photograph it. Destination Moon is better paced than Land of Black Gold, probably because it's not suffering from such a severe editing job. It also provides an interesting look at how space travel was imagined before there was space travel. It's quaint in places but no worse than a typical science fiction of this vintage. The book balances 1950s hard science fiction with the usual Tintin goofiness. There are gags with Thompson and Thomson. The Captain needs to have his whiskey and his pipe. Snowy gets himself into trouble and Tintin out of it. Meanwhile the rocket ship is your typical pulp science fiction three-point deal. The book ends with the space program advancing from the unmanned flight to one that will be manned by Tintin (why?), the Captain (again why?), Dr. Calculus (huh?) and some other guy. Of course they're needed to have the adventures in the next book, Explorers on the Moon.