Space Cadet

Space Cadet is a science fiction novel by the American writer Robert A. Heinlein, published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1948. It was the second of the novels he wrote for younger readers.

Matt Dodson leaves Iowa to apply for the Interplanetary Patrol, the force that keeps the peace between the settled worlds. He survives the examination process, makes friends among the other recruits, and is posted with them to an orbiting school ship for training before the best of them are assigned to working patrol vessels. He is an ordinary middy among cadets who mostly have three names, and his first real mission is to help search the asteroid belt for the research ship Pathfinder. As an officer of a police force rather than a navy, he is expected to learn when not to shoot, and the novel follows the cadets through training accidents, small disasters and the responsibilities that come with rank.

The book's title entered the language: a radio and television series about a character called Tom Corbett, Space Cadet followed in the 1950s, and the phrase outlived both.