Told in richly novelistic detail, The Sun and the Moon brings the raucous world of 1830s New York City vividly to life—the noise, the excitement, the sense that almost anything was possible. The book overflows with larger-than-life characters, including Richard Adams Locke, author of the moon series (who never intended it to be a hoax at all); a fledgling showman named P.T. Barnum, who had just brought his own hoax to New York; and the young writer Edgar Allan Poe, who was convinced that the moon series was a plagiarism of his own work.
An exhilarating narrative history of a city on the cusp of greatness and a nation newly united by affordable newspapers, The Sun and the Moon may just be the strangest true story you’ve ever read.

I like the science fiction idea, you could take it even further as an alternate history novel where it wasn't a hoax, but in fact everything in the article was true...

obi1kenobi1 -- Good idea!

Don't forget Poe's Hans Pfaall http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hanspfall.html
Imagine using the perfected technology of his balloon to set up regular traffic between Earth and the Moon.
Maybe even a "War of the Worlds" type invasion? (Earth invades Luna?)

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