History Literature / SpaceCadetHeinlein

A YoungAdult novel by Creator/RobertAHeinlein, published in 1948, following the adventures of Matt Dodson, a young man who joins the prestigious Space Patrol. As you might guess from the title, much of the novel follows his training, including rigorous physical and mental exams just to get in, then more training aboard the Patrol's university ''cum'' spaceship in orbit around Earth, and then finally his midshipman's cruise which leads to a crisis with the natives on Venus.

* DanBrowned: Unusual for Heinlein, he failed to account for some science. The narrator says that if the ''Randolph'' were not deliberately held in its relative position, it would slowly orbit Terra Station. But there is a thing known as a Hill sphere, which is the zone around a massive body within which satellites will tend to orbit it. Outside the sphere, the satellite will instead orbit whatever the body is orbiting. For example, anything more than about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth won't orbit it and will just independently orbit the sun. The Hill sphere of a space station orbiting Earth being negligible, a ship wouldn't orbit it.

* TeenGenius: An aversion, unusual for Heinlein. Matt Dodson is smart but struggles with complex math and isn’t an instinctive leader. His friend Oscar is a bit closer to the Heinlein archetype.

'''Examiner''': No questions, please! I've recorded your score.

** The protagonist is picked up by a helicopter, which doesn't seem too strange until you realize it's a [[FlyingCar personal helicopter that his family fly themselves, their version of a family car]]. Earlier this FarmBoy recalls getting his 'copter license at the age of 12.

* AsteroidThicket: Averted. The narration explicitly mentions how thin the belt really is and how unlikely a collision would be. But unlike in, say, ''Film/StarWars'', the ''Triplex'' doesn't have the benefit of deflector shields, so even a small rock could do serious damage at the speed they're traveling. Thus, Captain Yancey sets up a radar watch to avoid collisions; if the duty officer saw a rock approaching on a possible collision course, the alarm would be sounded and a thruster fired. Also, the ''Pathfinder'', the overdue ship they were searching for, had been holed by a fist-size meteor that, by bad luck, happened to puncture the inner airlock door just as the outer, armored door had opened to admit a spacewalking crewman.