(The cover by Lehr is the best one the book has had - in my opinion - and illustrates a scene near the end of the book.)

Farmer in the Sky (1950.) A shorter version was serialized in Boys' Life in 1950 as "Satellite Scout."

Bill Lermer is a Scout, who emigrates to Ganymede with his engineer-father. Of course, to emigrate, you had to be a family, so he suddenly acquires a new mother and stepsister. Bill has trouble adjusting, and his dad has to explain that he didn't get married to emigrate, but because he loved his new wife, and wanted room to raise a family. Travel to the colony in the torch-ship Mayflower takes months, and the details of shipboard life are shown with great inventiveness. When they arrive on Ganymede, all is not as rosy as indicated when they signed up. An artificial heat trap is what gives the moon a livable climate. Ganymede is nothing but rock, and has to be turned into a farming world by lots of hard work.

Heinlein has worked out the details of what has to be done, and what it will be like when doing it. His characters are survivors, who learn to adapt and do what is needed to survive.