its destruction; they return as heroes. Adaptations The 1950 movie Destination Moon was loosely based on Rocket Ship Galileo, and Heinlein was one of three co-authors of the script. The film's plot also resembles that of "The Man Who Sold the Moon", which Heinlein wrote in 1949 but did not publish until 1951. Critical reception Surveying Heinlein's juvenile novels, Jack Williamson noted that while Rocket Ship Galileo remains "readable, with Heinlein's familiar themes already emerging," it was a "sometimes fumbling experiment. ... The plot is often trite, and the characters are generally thin stereotypes." Robert Wilfred Franson said that "Heinlein wants there always to be young people of the right mind and character to seize such opportunities. His novels went a long way toward educating such a class of people, and still are doing so." Andrew Baker wrote: "'Rocket Ship Galileo' shares with numerous works composed before the advent of the actual Space Program a gross underestimation of the huge costs and investment of resources needed for any jaunt outside Earth's gravitational field. (...) The idea of private people (boys in this case) being able to just take off to the Moon on their own can ultimately be traced - like so many Science Fiction themes - to the fertile mind of H. G. Wells and to the two English gentlemen quietly taking off to the Moon in The First Men in the Moon. (...) The politics of 'Galileo' are still those of the World War II anti-Nazi Alliance, not of the emerging Cold War. Had it been written a few years later, the villains would have likely been Russian Communists". References External links 1947 American novels Novels by Robert A. Heinlein American science fiction novels Novels set on the Moon American young adult novels American novels adapted into films 1947 speculative fiction novels 1947 science fiction novels Children's science fiction novels Novels about Nazis Space exploration novels