Red Planet is a 1949 science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein about students at boarding school on the planet Mars. It represents the first appearance of Heinlein's idealized Martian elder race, a species described that resemble descriptions of Native Americans among progressives of the time.
The version published in 1949 featured a number of changes forced on Heinlein by Scribner's to reflect the publisher's perception of the juvenile market. After Heinlein's death, the book was reissued by Del Rey Books in the form that the author originally intended.