In H. G. Wells’s “The First Men in the Moon,” the scientist who invents the spaceship is Mr. Cavor. He develops cavorite, a fictional substance that blocks or negates gravity, making a journey to the Moon possible.
Cavor meets the businessman Mr. Bedford in the Kent countryside. After discovering cavorite’s extraordinary properties, Cavor designs a spherical spacecraft made from steel and lined with glass. Movable sections of cavorite act like blinds, allowing the craft to be steered by controlling the direction in which gravity is blocked.
The two men travel to the Moon, where they discover that it is inhabited by an advanced, insect-like civilisation called the Selenites. Their motives differ: Cavor is driven primarily by scientific curiosity, while Bedford hopes to exploit lunar resources and build a profitable space-travel enterprise.
The novel was serialised in 1900–1901 and published in book form in 1901. Mr. Bedford is the narrator and Cavor’s companion, not the inventor. Professor Challenger belongs to Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Lost World,” making him a neighbouring but unrelated scientific-fiction character.