Homer Hickam

Homer Hadley Hickam, Jr. ( born February 19, 1943 in Coalwood, West Virginia) is an American engineer and writer.

Life

Homer Hickam's father was the manager of the mine in Coalwood and his mother was a housewife. Since then, the Russians had the 1957 Sputnik satellite launched into space, Homer was so fascinated by the space that he later wanted to work at Cape Canaveral, and Wernher von Braun was his idol.

During high school, he founded with his friends Roy Lee Cook, Quentin Wilson, Sherman Siers, Jimmy " O'Dell " Carroll and Billy Rose to build the Big Creek Missile Agency and they started small rockets. They were supported by Freida Joy Riley, Homer's chemistry teacher, and Homer's mother. After 1960, the Big Creek High School finished, he began to study engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, from which he graduated in 1964.

After that, he served six years with the United States Army, where he served as a lieutenant in Vietnam, among others 1967-1968. From 1971 to 1981 he worked as an engineer for the U.S. Army Missile (Cruise Missile ) command. 1981 Homer realized his dream and became an engineer at NASA 's Marshall Space Flight Center. There he trained astronauts and worked on the design of space vehicles. During the time at NASA he also wrote his first book, Torpedo Junction, which was published in 1989. In 1998 he finished his service at NASA and was full-time writer. So far, only his autobiography Rocket Boys has been translated into German, as well as this novel was filmed in 1999 under the name October Sky.

Today, Homer lives with his wife Linda in Alabama and the Virgin Islands.

Awards and honors

  • Great Books of 1998 by the New York Times for Rocket Boys
  • Book-of - the-Month, from the Doubleday book club for Rocket Boys
  • Book-of - the-Month, from the Doubleday book club for The Coalwood Way
  • Alabama 's Distinguished Service Award

Works

Coalwood Series

  • Rocket Boys / October Sky, 1998
  • The Coalwood Way, 2000
  • Sky of Stone, 2001
  • We Are Not Afraid, 2002

Josh Thurlow series

  • The Keeper 's Son, 2003
  • The Ambassador 's Son, 2005
  • The Far Reaches, 2007

More Books

  • Torpedo Junction, 1989
  • Back To The Moon, 1999
Coalwood (West Virginia) Integrated Authority File
390961
de