[a] "The Brick Moon" (Atlantic Monthly, October-December 1869) The story is told in Hale's usual chatty, entertaining, but prolix style. 

*  Back in the 1840s, when the narrator was at college, he and his friends Orcutt and Halliburton as a jeu d'esprit worked out rough plans for an artificial moon. They decided upon a construction about two hundred feet in diameter, which would be hurled into space by two gigantic flywheels rotating in opposite directions. The young men went so far as to make working drawings. 

*  Seventeen years pass before the three meet again and decide to revive the old project. It is costed at $250,000, and since the moon is primarily intended to be a navigational aid, public support is requested. The world responds with about $160,000. This is not adequate, but circumstances permit the associates to cut costs. They have an ideal working site along the Little Carrotook (Maine?), with water power, wood for fuel, and clay beds. (For reasons the author does not explain the plan calls for brick as construction material, although brick, for its fragility, seems a very inajjpropriate material.) The Civil War then breaks out, and work is halted. 

*  After the war, work resumes. As finished, the moon consists of thirteen large spheres: a middle group of six around a central sphere, three spheres joined above, and three below. All are interconnected with brick arches. 

*  The moon is almost ready to be launched when the ground suddenly subsides because of the weight of the construction. The moon slides prematurely down onto the flywheels and is launched into space. Unfortunately it does not assume the orbit that had been planned. And worse, there were people inside the moon when it was tossed up— Orcutt and his family and others.