Task: Story Composition
Input (English): Fact1: Barnum heads for England with star, Fact2: German explosives expert Siegfried Von Bulow proposes idea of sending projectile to moon using powerful new explosive, Fact3: spaceship designed by Sir Charles Dillworthy proves useless, Fact4: American balloon enthusiast has run off with girlfriend to man, Fact5: Gaylord agrees to take Tom Thumb 's place
Output (English): In Victorian England, everyone is trying to make new scientific discoveries. In the USA, Phineas T. Barnums Greatest Show on Earth burns to the ground, so he heads for England with his star, Tom Thumb. He is invited to a lecture by German explosives expert Siegfried Von Bulow who proposes the idea of sending a projectile to the moon using a powerful new explosive. Von Bulow is ridiculed but Barnum thinks the idea has the potential to make him money. He sets about finding the financial backing in order to build a giant cannon to fire the projectile, carrying a reluctant Tom Thumb. The project attracts spies from all over the world. However the spaceship designed by Sir Charles Dillworthy proves useless since it does not provide a means for returning to the earth. Barnum then meets an American balloon enthusiast, Gaylord Sullivan, who has run off with his girlfriend, Madelaine, on her wedding day to another man, the wealthy Frenchman Henri. Gaylord claims that he has designed a projectile equipped with roundtrip rockets. Henri offers to finance Gaylords missile if he agrees to take Tom Thumbs place. Dillworthy and his shady brotherinlaw, Harry WashingtonSmythe, who have already embezzled most of Barnums funds, immediately plot to sabotage Gaylords flight. When Madelaine discovers their plan, she is kidnapped and taken off to Angelicas Home for Wayward Girls. She escapes, however, and arrives back at the launching pad, located on a mountain in Wales, just as Gaylord is being removed from the sabotaged moonship. Dillworthy, WashingtonSmythe, and a Russian spy, Bulgeroff, sneak into the spaceship to continue their sabotage. Bulgeroff pulls the takeoff lever, and the three men are sent soaring on a oneway trip. They land in what is presumably barren wasteland to find inhabitants singing in Russian. The befuddled WashingtonSmythe can only conclude that the Russians are already on the moon.