Space Cadet is a 1948 science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein about Matt Dodson, who joins the Interplanetary Patrol to help preserve peace in the Solar System. The story translates the standard military academy story into outer space: a boy from Iowa goes to officer school, sees action and adventure, shoulders responsibilities far beyond his experience, and becomes a man. It was published as the second of the series of Heinlein juveniles and inspired the media franchise around the character Tom Corbett, including the 1950s television series Tom Corbett, Space Cadet and radio show which made "Space Cadet" a household phrase whose meaning later shifted in popular culture.
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The year is 2075. New cadets are being sworn in at the rocket ship training school of Terra Base, Colorado.
The commandant raises his hand.
"Repeat after me. Of my own free will without reservation—"
"Of my own free will without reservation—"
"I swear to uphold the peace of the Solar System . . . To defend the constitution of the Solar Federation."
So Matt and Tex, cadets from Terra. Oscar a Colonial from Venus, Pierre from one of Jupiter's moons, and others put on their oyster white uniforms and start their training and their strange adventures in the Solar Patrol.
Exciting, strange, weird, yet realistic and as scientific as a "story projected into the future" can be, this gives us some idea of what interplanetary communication—already definitely planned—may mean.
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