Rocket Ship Galileo
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 First Edition cover |
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| Author | Robert A. Heinlein |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Thomas Voter |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Scribner's |
| Released | May 1, 1947 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| Pages | 212 pp |
| ISBN | NA |
| Followed by | Space Cadet |
Rocket Ship Galileo is a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, published in 1947. It was the first in the Heinlein juveniles, a long and very successful series of SF novels published by Scribner's. The novel was originally envisioned as the first of a series of books called "Young Rocket Engineers".
Contents |
[edit] Plot introduction
Three teenage boys in a post-World War II rocket club join with a scientist to build an atomic-powered rocket that will take them to the moon.
[edit] Plot summary
The young male rocket experimenters, members of the Galileo Chowder and Marching Society, under the guidance of the Dr. Cargraves, refit a conventionally powered "mail rocket" to be powered by a Thorium nuclear pile which boils Zinc as a propellant. They use a cleared area in a military weapons test range in the desert for their work, amid prying and sabotage efforts from unknown agents. Immediately upon completion, they stock the rocket and leave for the moon, taking approximately 11 days to arrive. After establishing a semi-permanent structure based on a Quonset hut, they claim the moon as property of the United Nations, then set up a radio to receive from earth. However, they discover a local transmission, the sender of which promises to meet them, but instead bombs their ship. The expedition team ambushes the bomber when it lands, capturing the pilot. They discover that there is a Nazi base on the moon. They then bomb the base and land. Inside the base, a one survivor is found, revived, and questioned. The boys also find evidence of an ancient moon civilization, and postulate that the craters of the moon were formed not by impact, but from nuclear bombing. When the base's Nazi leader shoots the pilot, the only other survivor, in order to silence him, the Galileo's crew try him and find him guilty of murder. They plan to coerce him into doing their bidding by making him believe that he is going to be ejected into vacuum. The Nazi capitulates in the airlock and teaches them how to fly the Nazi spaceship, which is capable of flying back to earth. The boys radio back to earth with the location of the hidden Nazi base on earth, leading to its destruction. They return to earth as heroes.
[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
The 1950 movie Destination Moon was loosely based on Rocket Ship Galileo, and Heinlein was one of three co-authors of the script. The film's plot also resembles that of "The Man Who Sold the Moon", which Heinlein wrote in 1949 but did not publish until 1951.
[edit] References
- Bleiler, Everett (1948). The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Chicago: Shasta Publishers, 146.
[edit] External link
Rocket Ship Galileo publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
