ecent high-school graduates Ross Jenkins, Art Mueller and Morrie Abrams share an unusual hobby: They build rockets. They pursue their endeavor with scientific rigor, which, unfortunately, doesn't guarantee success. As the friends test a new fuel mix in their Starstruck V, the rocket blows up—just like its predecessors. However, this time the aftermath of the explosion includes not only scattered pieces, but a man, knocked unconscious.
The trespasser turns out to be Art's famous uncle, Dr. Donald Cargraves. As he recovers from his head wound, the nuclear physicist finds himself impressed by the young men's intelligence, their advanced education from an unusual high school and their accomplishments in experimental rocketry. Cargraves invites the young men to join him in designing and flying the real thing: a rocket ship. But he doesn't intend to build just another intercontinental passenger rocket ship. He intends to create a radical new rocket ship that can do the impossible: fly to the moon.
Cargraves' goal proves even more difficult than anticipated. The expected worries—parental resistance, experimental failures, radiation, money—are joined by mysterious prowlers. Yet Cargraves's experimental rocket ship is a secret. Who on Earth knows what he's doing, and why would they oppose it so fiercely as to attempt murder? For the Galileo is sabotaged, and Cargraves and Ross are badly wounded. The four men may never get to the moon ... and if they do, they may find that the moon harbors an even deadlier threat.
The blueprint for Destination Moon
It would be difficult to find a science-fiction reader anywhere on Earth who hasn't heard of Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988), America's most famous SF author. He published his first SF, the story "Lifeline," in Astounding SF in 1939, and his many contributions to the magazine shaped not only SF's legendary "Golden Age," but the entirety of American SF and a great proportion of foreign SF. For his considerable accomplishments, Heinlein received four Hugo Awards and the Science Fiction Writers of America's first Grand Master Award.
Heinlein's best, most famous, and most influential SF books are his juvenile novels. Rocket Ship Galileo (1947) is the first of this distinguished list, which also includes Space Cadet (1948), Red Planet (1949), Farmer in the Sky (1950), Between Planets (1951), The Rolling Stones (1952), Starman Jones (1953), The Star Beast (1954), Tunnel in the Sky (1955), Time for the Stars (1956), Citizen of the Galaxy (1957), Hugo nominee Have Space Suit—Will Travel (1958), Hugo winner Starship Troopers (1959) and Podkayne of Mars (1963). Heinlein's young-adult novels are rich in his virtues: rigorous scientific extrapolation; fast-paced, fascinating plots; interesting, sympathetic characters; and the polished narrative skills that showed SF writers how to replace deadly dull info-dumps with details woven subtly and intriguingly into the text. Additionally, Heinlein's YA novels are mostly or entirely devoid of the didacticism, solipsism and bad sex that weaken many of his later adult novels.
Famed as the basis for the Heinlein-scripted motion picture Destination Moon (1950), Rocket Ship Galileo may be the weakest of his 14 YA books. Part of the problem is merely the passage of time: Rocket Ship Galileo is the oldest of Heinlein's juveniles, and its events are extrapolated directly from the scientific developments and Nazi crimes of World War II. Furthermore, the Apollo missions have made it clear that moon trips aren't for backyard hobbyists. Nowadays, Rocket Ship Galileo is best read as alternate history.
The book's other problems cannot be fixed by a switch of perspective. Cargraves is distinctly drawn, but his three assistants can be difficult to tell apart. Also, the pace flags whenever the doctor gives the lads a lecture. On the whole, however, Rocket Ship Galileo is a good, entertaining novel. It's a classic for the right reasons.
