This is something very strange I remember reading over a decade ago in an old popular scientific magazine. Basically what it said was that with the success of trading companies in the 17th century and the increasing understanding of the nature of the Solar System, plans were drawn up for a Moon program. It continued to talk about how neither oxygen nor the workings of gravity were known yet, so it was assumed you only needed to get a ship up about 30 kilometres and it would float the rest of the way to the Moon. The way this was going to be accomplished was through controlled gunpowder explosions driving large wings on the side of the ship. The plan was to go to the Moon and explore it/trade with the people there, and there were even plans to found a Moon Trading Company. From what I remember it talked about the plans being largely just ideas thrown around by a small group of people, but that they were starting to gain traction and were nearing the point of concrete plans when new scientific discoveries showed the plan to be completely unfeasible.

Obviously, this whole things sounds rather far-fetched, even if it just stuck to being ideas. I have done some research into the matter on the internet before, but have never been able to find anything mentioning it. So I wonder if anyone here has even the faintest clue what the magazine may have been talking about and whether there were actually ideas to go to the Moon in the 17th century.