Rocket Ship Galileo - A Review
March 2nd, 2007 | by Todd W |
In writing these Heinlein reviews, I find myself evaluating how age has affected each book. Does it still hold up? Has science messed with it enough to damage the story? Are there aspects that simply can’t be overlooked in the face of new technology?
In all cases, I think the core aspects of the human story hold up very well. However, the story elements of some simply won’t translate well to a youthful (or adult) reader of today.
Rocket Ship Galileo might be the ‘most dated’ of all the stories (even if one gives a charitable pass to farming on Ganymede).
Take a good look at the emblem on the wing of that ship, just over the head of the near figure on the cover.
Yeah. An Iron Cross.
I present to you: Lunar Nazis.
Rocket Ship Galileo was written in 1947, and is the very first in the Heinlein Juvenile group. Nazis on the moon really isn’t that bad of a concept for 1947, particularly when memories of the V2 were fresh, and we really didn’t seem to be that far away from human space flight on a ‘hobby’ level. In addition, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were still current, so the presence of nuclear weapons in the book brought all of the major concerns of the age together into a nice, action-filled read.
A small club of rocket enthusiasts, under the guidance of an older professor as a father-figure, purchase an old, second hand ‘mail rocket’, designed to ferry cargo from point to point on the earth. Improbably, they manage to refit the ship with a thorium reactor in place of the chemical rockets, fueling it with zinc as a propellant (the high mass of the vaporized zinc provides a fairly impressive impulse).
Eventually, the group stocks up the rocket and embarks on a trip to the moon.
I should pause here. Yes, some teenagers build a rocket and fly to the moon. I know. However, Heinlein spends a lot of time on engineering aspects, giving the whole endeavor a patina of genuine plausibility. While there might be some hand-waving, there certainly isn’t as much hand-waving as my little explanation might lead you to believe. Heinlein makes kids work at understanding the science.
So, it is off to the moon on an eleven day voyage. After arriving and erecting a small Quonset hut, the Galileo is destroyed by undetected moon Nazis (please, it isn’t really that funny…).
Our intrepid youth are left to their own wits as they try to infiltrate the Nazi base, seize the Nazi rocket, and coerce a Nazi pilot in teaching them how to operate the ship so they can return home. (Moon Nazis. I hate Moon Nazis). Toss in Nazi nuclear weapons, and evidence that cratering on the moon is a result of a nuclear exchange between some older races, and you have a nice mixture of timely villains and fears of the era.
Rocket Ship Galileo has all the ingredients of a Heinlein Juvenile, but it just doesn’t quite come together as nicely as the later works. I still have fond memories of it, but writing this review has illustrated weaknesses I had glossed over in my recollection.
