Trivia / Space Cadet (Heinlein)

• Falsely Advertised Accuracy: 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.
• Science Marches On: The basics of orbital mechanics are sound, but Venus is depicted in its typical swamp habitat stereotype and the Asteroid Belt is described as a destroyed planet (which is a minor plot point later).