The Airship 'Enterprise'

This famous craft was, without a doubt, the most well-known flying machine of its time. The illustrated accounts of the explorations of the Enterprise and her three-man crew were to enthrall readers around the world. The immortal lines which prefaced the serialised tales in The Strand magazine have become almost as famous as the ship itself...

"These are the voyages of the airship 'Enterprise'. Its five-year mission; to seek out lost worlds and lost civilisations, to boldly go where no man has gone before..."

For four and a half years, readers would wait impatiently for the monthly extracts from the journal of charismatic ship's captain Tiberius J. Kirk. The intrepid explorers' discovery of ancient ruins and artifacts across initially Southern America, and then the uncharted hinterlands of Asia, was to provide the backbone to a thrilling collection of stories.

The last communication from the Enterprise was to arrive in London in June 1862 - only three months before the ship was due to reach the end of her five-year mission. No-one can be sure exactly what happened to Kirk and his crewmates; Professor Bonaparte McCoy and engineer Mister Scott. However, rumours persist that the Enterprise fell victim to some sinister Manchurian plot. Perhaps one day, a new generation of explorers will find the wreckage of the Enterprise deep in some steaming Asian jungle, and the mystery will finally be explained.

A collection of illustrations of the Enterprise are published here with the kind permission of the proprieters of The Strand magazine.

The Lunar Expeditionary Landing

The Lunar Expeditionary Landing of 1898 was a triumph of Imperial technological ingenuity. The landing craft, christened "Mabel", put down on the Moon's Sea of Tranquility to establish Salisbury Base Camp on May 24th, the Queen's birthday.
Lofted skwards through a combination of Cavorite lift and rocket propulsion, the Lunar Expedition took three days to make the transit through the aether to the Moon. Captain W.E. Johns and Doctor Alexander "Alec" Watt were later to describe the journey as "deeply unsettling" and "rather peculiar". One can only imagine the discomfort they experienced whilst floating free of the reassuring certainty of the Earth's gravitational field.
That the two men made this epic journey and returned to the safety of their home planet alive is one of the greatest feats of exploration and scientific achievement of the modern age. Imperial men of science continue to study the variety of minerals brought back by the Expedition, and these have greatly increased our understanding of the early history of our solar system.
Despite the unwieldiness of their "vacuum suits", the two lunar explorers carried out many experiments during their nine hours on the surface of the Moon. Captain Johns was pleased to report that he struck a cricket ball, bowled by Doctor Watt, a distance of two full miles.
The Expedition was to establish that commercial mining operations would never be able to recoup the considerable costs of travelling to and fro between the Earth and her closest neighbour. Sadly, the famous Expedition of 1898 remains the only occasion on which men from planet Earth have walked on the soil of another world.
More of the photographic images from the Expedition can be seen here.