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Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Mar 17, Space Camp Explorers Club. Leave a Comment Cancel Reply Comment Name required Email will not be published required Website Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. It's an astonishing image, and Hickam plays it beautifully, deadpanning, "well, I really think that Wernher von Braun had more to do with it than I did, but.
Next came four years at Virginia Polytechnic Institute. After graduating in , his rockets took him not to Cape Canaveral and NASA's triumphs, but to the dark side of the s: service in Vietnam. I felt I should go, and I had an ulterior motive: I wanted the experience.
I was young and invulnerable, and the war was something I wanted to taste — a crucible to pass through. Once there, it took me about 48 hours to figure out 'I don't really want to die over here.
More than two decades after Sputnik, Hickam was living his boyhood dream. He worked on many Space Shuttle missions, including the delicate rescue of the Hubble Space Telescope, before leaving the agency earlier this year.
The time has been spent establishing an aerospace consultancy and concentrating further on his writing. If I did, I'd probably never sit down in front of the word processor. The first thing to do is to go ahead and write and not worry too much about the style and format or anything like that. Get the story down and then go back — what I really love is to go back and re-write.
I've made the mistake of faxing stuff when it was hot off the typewriter, and I've always regretted that. Every time. Well, perhaps not every time. Rocket Boys the book began in when Hickam received a desperate call from an editor at Smithsonian Air and Space. A few hours and 2, words later, Hickam had submitted what amounted to the germ of a book. The hitch: he had to track down year-old Sonny Hickam, his compatriots, supporters — and his father.
The intervening years had pulled survivors away as it banished them to the edges of his memory. I'd have to say that in the intervening years I did not have any issues with Dad, and I don't think he had any with me. At first, he mostly wrote about his scuba diving adventures for a variety of different magazines. Then, after diving on many of the wrecks involved, he branched off into writing about the battle against the U-boats along the American east coast during World War II.
This resulted in his first book, Torpedo Junction , a military history best-seller published in by the Naval Institute Press. It became an instant classic. Rocket Boys has since been translated into eight languages and also released as an abridged audio book and electronic book. Delacorte subsequently released a mass market paperback of Rocket Boys , re-titled October Sky. October Sky reached the New York Times 1 position on their best-seller list. It has also been translated into Chinese.
The Coalwood Way , a memoir of Mr. His first marriage, from to , ended in divorce. He is currently married to Linda Terry Hickam, whom he wed in He maintains his primary residence in Huntsville.
Homer Hickam at Marshall Center After his retirement, Hickam began publishing both fiction and nonfiction books. His first book, Torpedo Junction , focused on U. Atlantic coast during World War II. All of Hickam's subsequent books can be categorized in relation to his personal experiences, interests, and expertises.
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