In a story called From the Earth to the Moon, written back in 1865, Jules Verne described how Messieurs Ardan, Barbicane and Nicholl were launched upon their eponymous journey.
They were projected from the Earth by an enormous cannon and were ultimately trapped in space, destined forever to circumnavigate the moon. Until a sequel, produced by popular demand, brought them safely back to Earth by means of a splashdown in the Pacific.
But with remarkable prescience, Verne had the heroes embark upon their journey from a spot in Florida uncannily close to what we know today as Cape Canaveral.
By the time you read these words, all going well, Weather Eye will have spent the last two days at Cape Canaveral. I am here to witness the beginning of another chapter in space meteorology - the launch of weather satellite GOES-L into geostationary orbit, where it will take up duty as the latest weather eye in the sky for the next five years or so.
Satellites are named in a way that sometimes seems unduly complicated. GOES-L, for example, is the latest in a series called Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites. When these spacecraft are being assembled on the ground they are given serial letters: the first in the series was GOES-A, the second GOES-B, and so on.
When, however, a satellite is safely in its orbit, a number is substituted for the letter, so GOES-L will in due course start its working life as GOES-11.
As the family name implies, the GOES are geostationary, which means that they are positioned over the equator in such a way that their speed in orbit matches precisely the speed at which the Earth rotates upon its axis - so the satellite appears to be fixed in space and looks down constantly on the same segment of the globe.
It takes five satellites strung out around the Earth above the equator to provide pictorial coverage of the world. The European Meteosat satellite is stationed over Africa, and there is a European spacecraft over the Indian Ocean. Japan has a spacecraft in its sector of the globe, and the Americans contribute two: GOES-West hovers over the centre of the Pacific and GOES-East is over Quito in South America.
When GOES-L has been tested in its orbit, it will be manoeuvred to take up duty in one of these positions.
So if all went well at 7 o'clock this morning Irish time, a new weather observer, GOES-L, will have reported for duty in the heavens, and under its new name, GOES-11, will shortly undertake its five-year vigil to improve our weather forecasts.