John Wilkins' 17​th​-Century Moon Mission

I have blogged about this before, once in Esperanto, once in English. These historical tidbits keep getting rediscovered, this time by one of my favorite enterprises, Atlas Obscura:

The 17​th​-Century Moon Mission That Never Got Off the Ground 
by NATALIE ZARRELLI,
Atlas Obscura, May 03, 2017
(Dr. John Wilkins’ lunar ambitions were a little too lofty.)

Wilkins' ideas were a combination of forward-thinking scientific and technological notions and faulty speculation. His conception of space travel is outlined here. His creation of a universal language is also noted, more than once.  Here is a tidbit new to me:

' A century later, some of Wilkins’ eclectic passions were the butt of small jokes; in a 1784 letter, historian Horace Walpole wrote: “I discovered an alliance between Bishop Wilkins’s art of flying, and his plan of universal language; the latter of which he no doubt calculated to prevent the want of an interpreter when he should arrive at the moon.” '

Let me repeat a few relevant links (see my Esperanto post for non-English links):

By Wilkins:

“A Journey to the Moon Possible” [from The Discovery of a New World (1638)], in English Prose: Selections with Critical Introductions by Various Writers and General Introductions to Each Period; Vol. II. Sixteenth Century to the Restoration; edited by Henry Craik (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1916).

The Discovery of a World in the Moone: Or, A Discovrse Tending To Prove That ’Tis Probable There May Be Another Habitable World In That Planet. Printed by E.G. for Michael Sparke and Edward Forrest, 1638. 

By someone else:

Ballad of Gresham College (1663)