nce the fabulous dream of peerless scientists, in this novel rockets are now so much a
part of the technological landscape that building them is child's play--as
long as the children in question are bright, industrious
teenagers like Art,
Morrie, and Ross. The turning point comes when the scale
rocketships they're
building (and blowing up) in Ross's backyard attract the
attention of Art's
uncle, the nuclear physicist "Doc" Cargraves.
Cargraves wants to go to the moon, but no one in government or commerce
seems interested. These kids, though, have both the skills and the
enthusiasm. So Cargraves offers them their wildest dream, and they jump at
it like a shot.
After securing the parents' reluctant permission, Cargraves and his malt
shop crew set up housekeeping on government land in New Mexico. Cargraves
scavenges a surplus transport rocketship for them to soup up with his
zinc-vapor propulsion system; Morrie trains as a pilot and Art and Ross
build the gadgets they'll need. Oddly, someone's trying to sabotage the
amateur expedition: First a bogus inspector shows up, then a bomb wounds
Cargraves and temporarily blinds Ross. Disillusioned, Cargraves
cancels the
project, but relents when he realizes these youths will go to the moon even if
they have to walk.
They hurriedly complete their preparations and then, amid press hoopla,
launch their ship, the Galileo. The trip is uneventful; not so the moon
landing. They've hardly begun exploring the arid lunar landscape when they
discover they're not alone!
Worse, their fellow astronauts are hostile: leftover Nazis with a
dastardly
plan to crush democracy from the safety of the moon. When they destroy the
Galileo, Cargraves and his young friends have no choice but to
foil their
evil plan if they're to have any chance of getting off this dead, airless
world alive.
A teenager's fantasy
Rocketship Galileo might be described as Archie Goes to the
Moon, except it's not that nuanced. There's no Betty or Veronica, nor
any women at all apart from soft-hearted mothers. (Art's mom:
"You be a good
boy on the moon, Arthur.") There's no Reggie or Jughead
either--all three of
these kids are Archie. Forget "One small step for a man": When Archie
(sorry, Art) steps out onto the moon, he says, "Swell!"
This gee-whiz tone would be a lot of fun if the story went anywhere or if
the characters were fleshed out a little more. There's a solid-gold
opportunity here to develop starry-eyed high school seniors into capable
young adults, but Heinlein--constrained by the lighthearted tone--barely
scrapes the surface. (Tunnel in the Sky does a better job
at turning
boys into men.) Likewise, the Nazis are little more than a late plot
development, easily disposed of by pure American nerve.
It's not just that this is an earlier, simpler Heinlein. Though
Rocketship Galileo was his first novel published in book form, he'd
already serialized three more serious works before World War II in
Astounding magazine (including Methuselah's
Children). Though
this is not quite the Heinlein who would go on to craft Stranger in a
Strange Land and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Rocketship
Galileo also seems to represent an attempt to feel the exuberance of a
trip to the moon from a teenager's perspective. Some of that
comes through,
but unsupported by an understanding of these thinly sketched
characters, it
ends up having a two-dimensional, cartoon feel.
Even Heinlein's best novels are hit-or-miss affairs (especially when it
comes to endings). Here at least he achieved consistency of tone,
though at
the price of depth and scope. The result is an okay book, but a story that would make an excellent comic.
