Rocket Ship Galileo
by Robert A. Heinlein · first published 1947
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2010–2024first – last mentioned
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Three teenagers and an older scientist develop their own atomic rocket, solve their own space problems and blast off for the moon in spite of mysterious setbacks.
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Heinlein's Rocket Ship Galileo (1947), actually. For a vague, SPOILER-ish description (the book's cover often gives it away anyhow): A group of teens build a moon rocket, but someone (wonder who?) is there to meet them.
on “Space Nazi Trailers Draw Crowd Funding for Iron Sky Movie” ↗Fun related trivia: I just read Robert A. Heinlein's first "Heinlein juvenile" (i.e. young adult) novel Rocket Ship Galileo. It was published in 1947. The rocket ship's power plant was a nuclear reactor using... thorium.
on “Thorium” ↗…things accurately tells you what you need to learn to get into MIT and CalTech, and how polite the latter's rejection letter is, which I can attest to :-). Even going back to his first juvenile in 1947, Rocket Ship Galileo, the scientist protagonist is very surprised at how well educated in science, math and engineering are the group of high school students he falls in with. And he wrote rather a lot on this elsewhere,…
on “Techies Who Are Homeschooling Their Kids” ↗This reminds of the classic Heinlein story, Rocket Ship Galileo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Ship_Galileo I remember the plot was a little outlandish to me even when I 11 years old: All American kids team up with a brilliant scientist and build a rocket…
on “Hitler’s Teeth Confirm He Died in 1945 (2018)” ↗…Suit---Will Travel (his juveniles were intended to teach readers what they needed to know to go out into space, from attitudes to what they needed to learn. The latter was touched upon in the first, the 1947 Rocket Ship Galileo, this book gave it a very thorough treatment in the beginning when the (genius, scientist, etc.) father of the protagonist realized how awful was the public school education he was getting). And as I…
on “2+2=What? Parents rail against Common Core math” ↗Interestingly enough, in 2011, Brandenburg thought that was the case too: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2011/pdf/1097.pdf The more recent paper seems like a rehashed subplot from Heinlein's "Rocket Ship Galileo" From chapter 11: Morrie grasped his arm, to steady himself apparently, but quite as much for the comfort of solid human companionship. "You know what I think, Ross," he began, as he stared out at the…
on “Evidence for nuclear explosions on Mars [pdf]” ↗…I've heard that story before", and sure enough, went and found approximately the exact same story of the "last-minute, running out of fuel, manual take-over moon landing" in a novel by Heinlein called "Rocket Ship Galileo"[1]. I would encourage anyone interested to compare the landing story told by Aldrin with the landing story told by Heinlein and judge for themselves whether or not the official story is what actually…
on “YouTube will add information from Wikipedia to videos about conspiracies” ↗Your comment reminds me of "Rocket Ship Galileo" by Robert Heinlein. Which is to say, crazy reductive.
on “The Starship or the Canoe: Where will our future adaptations be? (2017)” ↗Sounds like the system in Heinlein's Rocket Ship Galileo
on “NASA, DARPA Will Test Nuclear Engine for Future Mars Missions” ↗…solutionism and a side order of frontier colonialism." The kids reading SF in the 1970s were reading SF from across multiple previous decades, not just the 70s. One such example is Heinlein's 1947 book Rocket Ship Galileo. In it, they are trying to convince some parents to let their teen-aged children to go on an experimental atomic-powered rocket to the moon. The mother describes why she gives permission: > “Oh, I know…
on “Tech Billionaires Need to Stop Trying to Make the Science Fiction They Grew Up” ↗