Rocket Boys
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “nostalgic and entertaining memoir” (People) about a group of young men who dreamed of launching rockets into outer space—the inspiration for the film October Sky
“A message of hope in an age of cynicism. . . . Perhaps we all have something to learn from a half-dozen boys who dared to reject all limitations . . . and resolved to send dreams roaring to the sky.”—The San Diego Union-Tribune
It was 1957, the year Sputnik raced across the Appalachian sky, and the small town of Coalwood, West Virginia, was slowly dying.
Faced with an uncertain future, Homer Hickam nurtured a dream: to send rockets into outer space. The introspective son of the mine’s superintendent and a…
Homer Hickam was born and raised in Coalwood, West Virginia. The author of Torpedo Junction (a Military History Book-of-the-Month Club selection) as well as numerous articles for such publications as Air & Space/Smithsonian and American History Illustrated, he is a NASA payload training manager for the International Space Station program and lives in Huntsville, Alabama.