Hector Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac
Cyrano de Bergerac really lived from about 1620 to 1655, big nose, duelling, and all. He was a poet, a dramatist, and science-fiction writer. He wrote of voyages to the moon and to the sun and was the first person in history to suggest in 1630 that the one method that could carry us into space--rockets.
