Ginny undoubtedly served as a model for many of his intelligent, fiercely independent female characters. She was a chemist and rocket test engineer, and held a higher rank in the Navy than Heinlein himself. She was also an accomplished college athlete, earning four letters. In 1953–1954, the Heinleins voyaged around the world (mostly via ocean liners and cargo liners, as Ginny detested flying), which Heinlein described in Tramp Royale, and which also provided background material for science fiction novels set aboard spaceships on long voyages, such as Podkayne of Mars, Friday and Job: A Comedy of Justice, the latter initially being set on a cruise much as detailed in Tramp Royale. Ginny acted as the first reader of his manuscripts. Isaac Asimov believed that Heinlein made a swing to the right politically at the same time he married Ginny. California In 1934, Heinlein was discharged from the Navy, owing to pulmonary tuberculosis. During a lengthy hospitalization, and inspired by his own experience while bed-ridden, he developed a design for a waterbed. After his discharge, Heinlein attended a few weeks of graduate classes in mathematics and physics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), but he soon quit, either because of his ill-health or because of a desire to enter politics. Heinlein supported himself at several occupations, including real estate sales and silver mining, but for some years found money in short supply. Heinlein was active in Upton Sinclair's socialist End Poverty in California movement (EPIC) in the early 1930s. He was deputy publisher of the EPIC News, which Heinlein noted "recalled a mayor, kicked out a district attorney, replaced the governor with one of our choice." When Sinclair gained the Democratic nomination for Governor of California in 1934, Heinlein worked actively in the campaign. Heinlein himself ran for the California State Assembly in 1938, but was unsuccessful. Heinlein was running as a left-wing Democrat in a conservative district, and he never made it past the Democratic primary. Author While not destitute after the campaign—he had a small disability pension from the Navy—Heinlein turned to writing to pay off his mortgage. His first published story, "Life-Line", was printed in the August 1939 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. Originally written for a contest, he sold it to Astounding for significantly more than the contest's first-prize payoff. Another Future History story, "Misfit", followed in November. Some saw Heinlein's talent and stardom from