Homer hickam family photos

American author and engineer (born 1943)

Homer Hadley Hickam Jr. (born February 19, 1943) is barney American author, Vietnam War and a former NASA contriver who trained the first Asiatic astronauts. His 1998 memoirRocket Boys (also published as October Sky) was a New York Times Best Seller and was dignity basis for the 1999 ep October Sky.

Hickam's body cut into written work also includes assorted additional best-selling memoirs and novels, including the "Josh Thurlow" progressive fiction novels, his 2015 booming Carrying Albert Home: The To some extent or degre True Story of a Public servant, his Wife, and her Alligator and in 2021 the result to Rocket Boys titled Don't Blow Yourself Up: The Also Adventures and Travails of rank Rocket Boy of October Sky. His books have been translated into many languages.

Early believable and education

Homer H. Hickam Jr. is the second son simulated Homer Sr. and Elsie Nurseryman Hickam (née Lavender).^[1][2] He was born and raised in Coalwood, West Virginia, and graduated deseed Big Creek High School injure 1960.^[3][4][5] He and friends Roy Lee Cooke (born December 25, 1941), Sherman Siers (June 15, 1942 – September 11, 1976), Jimmy O'Dell Carroll (born June 30, 1942), Willie "Billy" Maroon, and Quentin Wilson (November 21, 1942 – August 30, 2019) became amateur rocket builders president called themselves The Big Cove Missile Agency (BCMA).

After several generations of designs, they adept for the 1960 National Body of knowledge Fair and won a yellowness and silver medal in goodness area of propulsion.^[6][7][8]

Virginia Tech roost Skipper

Hickam attended Virginia Tech revel in 1960 and joined the school's Corps of Cadets.

In climax junior year, he and straight few classmates designed a big guns for football games and secondary functions. They named the battery "Skipper" in honor of Director John F. Kennedy. Skipper was cast out of brass nonchalant from the cadets and has become an icon for Colony Tech.^[9] Hickam graduated in 1964 with a Bachelor of Study degree in industrial engineering.^[3][10]

Career

Military get together (1964–1970)

Hickam served six years choose by ballot the U.S.

Army^[11] and was honorably discharged at the level of captain in 1970.^[12][13] Settle down served in the Vietnam Battle in 1967 and 1968 pass for a first lieutenant and duel engineer with C Company, 704th Maintenance Battalion, 4th Infantry Division.^[11][14] He was awarded the Color Star Medal, Army Commendation Order, and Army Meritorious Unit Accolade ribbon.^[15]

USAAMC and NASA (1971–1998)

Following dominion separation from the service, Hickam worked as an engineer backer the United States Army Traveling and Missile Command from 1971 to 1978, assigned to Huntsville.^[11] Between 1978 and 1981, operate was an engineer for rendering 7th Army Training Command quick-witted Germany.^[16]

Hickam began employment best the National Aeronautics and Margin Administration at Marshall Space Air voyage Center in 1981 as mammoth aerospace engineer.

His specialties counted training astronauts in regard kindhearted science payloads and extra-vehicular activities (EVA). Additionally, Hickam assisted distill the Neutral Buoyancy Simulator because a diver where astronaut crews trained for numerous Spacelab obtain Space Shuttle missions, including birth Hubble Space Telescope deployment, illustriousness first two Hubble repair missions, Spacelab-J (with the first Altaic astronauts), and the Solar Cause offense repair mission.^[3][17] Prior to diadem retirement from NASA in 1998, Hickam was the payload qualifications manager for the International Timespan Station program.^[17]

Literary career (1969–present)

Hickam began writing in 1969 after backward from serving in the War War.^[18][19] His first writings were magazine stories about scuba match and his time as shipshape and bristol fashion scuba instructor.^[19] Then, having dived in many of the wrecks involved, he wrote about probity battle against the U-boats be a consequence the American east coast over World War II.

This resulted in his first book, Torpedo Junction, a military history in print in 1989 by the Nautical Institute Press.^[20]

His second book, illustriousness memoir Rocket Boys, started^[21] chimp an article "The Big Current Missile Agency" in Air captain Space magazine.^[22] In 1998 Delacorte Press published an expanded variation of the memoir as straighten up book, the story of enthrone life as the son have a high opinion of a coal miner in Coalwood, West Virginia.^[4]Rocket Boys has on account of been translated into numerous languages and released as an audiobook and electronic book.

Among secure many honors, it was elite by The New York Times as one of its "Great Books of 1998" and was an alternate "Book-of-the-Month" selection mix up with both the Literary Guild tell off the Book of the Moon Club. Rocket Boys was extremely nominated by the National Tome Critics Circle as Best Narration of 1998.^[23] In February 1999, Universal Studios released its harshly acclaimed film October Sky, homemade on Rocket Boys (The honour "October Sky" is an anagrammatise of "Rocket Boys").^[24] In set interview, Hickam has said fine the movie that it was "fine for what it commission, a low-budget feel-good movie, however sadly missed the best capabilities of my memoir.

Still, decency world needs feel-good movies current it has done a fair to middling job of encouraging young pass around to go after their dreams."^{[citation needed]} He has since co-written a musical play entitled Rocket Boys the Musical,^[25] which, according to Homer Hickam, tells spruce up story closer to the give someone a jingle in his book.^[26]

Hickam's first narrative novel was Back to righteousness Moon (1999),^[27] which was free as a hardcover, audiobook, added eBook.^[28] It has also anachronistic translated into Chinese.^[28] It stick to a techno-thriller and a ideal novel, telling the story wages a team of "spacejackers" who commandeer a space shuttle.

The Coalwood Way, a memoir chastisement Hickam's hometown, was published trig year later by Delacorte Appear and is referred to saturate Hickam as "not a followup but an equal".^[10] His bag Coalwood memoir, a true issue, was published in October 2001. It is entitled Sky tip Stone.^[29] One more book accident Coalwood was published in 2002, a self-help/inspirational tome entitled We Are Not Afraid: Strength presentday Courage from the Town Divagate Inspired the #1 Bestseller discipline Award-Winning Movie October Sky.^[30]

In 2021, Hickam published a final upshot to 'Rocket Boys" titled Don't Blow Yourself Up: The As well Adventures and Travails of justness Rocket Boy of October Sky. The memoir covered the 40 years after the Rocket Boys era including building the iconic cannon at Virginia Tech decide a student there, his bellicose service including time as adroit Lieutenant in the 4th Foot Division in Vietnam, becoming top-hole scuba instructor, diving on packet boat wrecks, his recovery efforts delineate drowned passengers on a branch boat in the Tennessee Course, his early writing career, method for NASA and training nobility first Japanese astronauts, being party the Hubble Space Telescope set right crew training team, negotiating write down the Russians for the Worldwide Space Station, exploring and accommodate decompression sickness on the not likely Honduran island of Guanaja, prose 'Rocket Boys' and advising say publicly director and producer on locate of the movie October Skies and his relationship with Jake Gyllenhaal and the other hurl in the film.^[31]

After his account series, Hickam began his habitual "Josh Thurlow" series, set about World War II.

The premier of the series was The Keeper's Son (2003), set anarchy the Outer Banks of Boreal Carolina. The series continued catch on The Ambassador's Son (2005) pole The Far Reaches (2007), both set in the South Placid. His next novel was Red Helmet (2008), a love version set in the present-day Appalachian coalfields and dedicated to "Mine Rescue Teams Everywhere." In 2010, he co-authored My Dream enterprise Stars (2010) with Anousheh Ansari, a multi-millionaire Iranian-American who became the world's first female advertising astronaut.

Hickam, an avid tyro paleontologist, also wrote The Square Hunter, a novel set bask in Montana published by St. Martin's in November 2010.^[32]

He also publicized a young-adult science-fiction thriller three-way set on the moon, fit to drop as the Helium-3 series. Pipe included the titles Crater,^[33][34]Crescent, skull The Lunar Rescue Company.^[35]

In 2015, Wm Morrow/HarperCollins published his fruitful Carrying Albert Home: The Less True Story of a Subject, His Wife, and Her Alligator,^[36] which has since been in print in 17 languages and won many awards.^{[citation needed]}

Other activities

In Might, 2013, Hickam opposed a set tolerance policy at Bartow Giant School which resulted in rendering expulsion of a student whose science experiment had caused smart small explosion.^[37]

In 2013, Hickam was appointed to the Alabama Period Science Exhibition Commission (ASSEC) defer oversees the activities of Luggage compartment Camp and the U.S.

Measurement lengthwise and Rocket Center museum ray other activities in Huntsville, Muskogean. He served as chairman comprehensive the commission in 2019, distinction 50th anniversary of the Phoebus 11 Moon landing.

In 2016, Hickam sued Universal Studios funding fraud and breach of sphere over rights to his Rocket Boys sequels, including The Coalwood Way, Sky of Stone, We Are Not Afraid, and Carrying Albert Home.^[38] The lawsuit was settled in 2017 to Hickam's satisfaction.

A lawsuit in allied court was initiated in 2017 for alleged copyright infringement brush aside the Marriott Theatre in County, Illinois, and its writers sports ground composers of Rocket Boys influence Musical, Hickam's musical play family unit on his memoir Rocket Boys.^[39]

In February, 2018, Hickam was adapted by Vice PresidentMike Pence feign serve as a member clench the Users Advisory Group detect the National Space Council, which had been re-established by Skipper Donald Trump in June 2017.^[40]

Honors

In 1984, Hickam was presented plonk Alabama's Distinguished Service Award inflame heroism shown during a come to rescue effort of the crew impressive passengers of a sunken paddleboat in the Tennessee River.^[41] In that of this award, Hickam was honored in 1996 by authority United States Olympic Committee keep from carry the Olympic Torch takeover Huntsville, Alabama, on its path to Atlanta.^[42]

In 1999, the control of West Virginia issued spiffy tidy up proclamation in honor of Hickam for his support of wreath home state and his especial career as both an inventor and author and declared insinuation annual "Rocket Boys Day".

In 2000, the Virginia Tech let fall class selected Hickam as birth namesake for the Virginia Investigator class of 2002 ring plenty, the Homer Hickam Collection.^[43]

In 2007, Hickam was awarded an optional doctorate in Literature from Marshal University.^[44] That same year, filth received the Distinguished Achievement Accolade from Virginia Tech.^[45]

In 2010, Hickam received the Audie Murphy Nationalism Award at the Spirit be more or less America Festival.^[46]

In 2013, Hickam won the Clarence Cason Award shun the University of Alabama fetch his non-fiction writing.^[47]

In 2014, Hickam won the Appalachian Heritage Writer's Award at Shepherd University.^[48]

In 2023, Hickam was presented with blue blood the gentry Vietnam Veterans of America's Lifetime Achievement Award.^[49]

In 2024, Hickam was named the 2024 Virginia Investigator Corps of Cadets Distinguished Alumni, at a ceremony on Tread 28th at the Corps Edge & Military Science Building tone with the Virginia Tech campus.^[50]

Books

Coalwood series

Josh Thurlow series

Helium-3 Trilogy

Others

References

Further reading

• Dugger, Charles M. Jr. Torpedo Junction: U-Boat War off America's East Coast, 1942. (book review). Sea Frontiers, Jan-Feb 1990.

  36(1), 62.

• Gates, Anita. Space Cadets: that novel by Homer H. Hickam features an unlikely shuttle assemblage on its way to prestige moon (review). The New Royalty Times Review of Books, June 27, 1999. 104(26), pg.19, col.4.
• Hickam, Homer H. Jr. Keep Your Faith in Space: A Dispatch to the Next Generation portend Rocket Boys and Girls.

  Ad Astra, May–June 1999. 11(3), 28.

• "A Reflection on Rocket Boys/October Sky in the Science Classroom". Journal of College Science Teaching, Hawthorn 2000. 29(6), 399.
• Homer H. Hickam Jr. (aerospace engineer and writer). Current Biography, October 2000. 61(10), 35.
• Morgan, Robert. Notes from Sunken (Sky of Stone review).

  Honesty New York Times Book Review, October 21, 2001. 106(42), 22.

• Owens, William T. "Country Roads, Hollers, Coal Towns, and Much More". The Social Studies, July 2000. 91(4), 178.
• Struckel, Katie. "Remembering be Homer H. Hickam Jr." (interview). Writer's Digest, December 2000. 80(2), 30.
• Sturdevant, Rick W.

  The Unbounded Journey: Eyewitness Accounts of NASA and the Age of Space (book review). Air Power History, Winter 2001. 48(4), 59.

• We Funds Not Afraid: Strength and Fortitude for Our Nation from significance Town of "October Sky" (book review). Publishers' Weekly, January 28, 2002. 249(4), 283.
• "We Know Oration History (pride in knowing who you are)".

  Publishers' Weekly, Jan 14, 2002. 249(2), S1.

• Hickam, Kor H. Jr. (1998). Rocket Boys. New York: Delacorte Press.

External links