'Living in Huntsville, Ala., I am asked by the real rocket boys and girls to visit Marshall Space Flight Center to see what they are doing,' quipped Hickam. Hickam continues to keep a pulse on NASA's rocket development. The gathering was held in the Aerospace Exploration Gallery, a small NASA museum operated by NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center and located within walking distance of the Palmdale library. At NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, he began training. The location for the book review was appropriate. More than two decades after Sputnik, Hickam was living his boyhood dream. His second passion was writing and he has published a number of books, including 'Rocket Boys' that became the critically acclaimed movie 'October Sky.' Asked about his favorite books as a child, Hickam responded, 'Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea' and 'Huckleberry Finn.' When he retired from NASA in 1998 he was a Payload Training Manager for the International Space Station. He did so as a NASA aerospace engineer where he trained astronaut crews for both Spacelab and space shuttle missions. The first was to work in the space industry. He graduated from Big Creek High School in 1960 and he graduated from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Virginia Tech) in 1964 with his BS degree in Industrial Engineering. Hickam's book was adopted by a number of book clubs and libraries in the Antelope Valley area of California for their 'One Book, One Valley' literacy program because its story mirrored the childhoods of many locals who grew up watching the aerospace industry's finest flying overhead. was born on February 19, 1943, he was Elsie Hickam’s second son He was raised in coal wood, West Virginia.

Hickam shared this and other details when he joined the Palmdale, Calif., City Library's 'Rocket Boys' discussion group via telephone from his home in Alabama. Image left: Book cover for 'Rocket Boys' by Homer H. 'It is really the story of a boy and where he grew up,' said Hickam about the nonfiction memoir. How does a 54-year-old man get inside the brain of a 14-year-old boy? That was the challenge former NASA engineer and author Homer H.

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