February 19, 1943

Author and aerospace engineer Homer Hickam was born in West Virginia. A U.S. Army veteran who served in Vietnam, Hickam later spent 27 years as an engineer for the federal government, including a combined 24 years at Redstone Arsenal and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. While working for NASA, he specialized in training astronauts to work with science payloads and extra-vehicular activities. Since retiring, he has published more than a dozen fiction and nonfiction works on subjects including memoirs, U.S. naval history and historical fiction. Hickam’s second book, “Rocket Boys,” was selected by The New York Times as one of its “Great Books of 1998” and served as the basis for the 1999 film “October Sky.”

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Homer Hickam, 2007. (Virginia Tech University Relations, Wikipedia)

Author and former NASA engineer Homer Hickam, center, joins Marshall Space Flight Center’s Steve Cook, right, and Vince Huegele during a launch of a scale model of the Ares I crew launch vehicle in Huntsville in January 2008. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, photograph by Kimberly Newton, courtesy of NASA)

Author of Rocket Boys Homer Hickam Jr. (left) and Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Director Art Stephenson during a conference at Morris Auditorium on July 16, 1999. Hickam worked at MSFC during the Apollo project years. As a young man, Hickam always dreamed of becoming a rocket scientist and following in the footsteps of Wernher von Braun. Hickam would see his dream realized years later, and has since written “Rocket Boys,” commemorating his life and the people at MSFC. (NASA/MSFC, Wikipedia)

Madison County Commissioner Mike Gillespie, right, stands with author and former Marshall Space Flight Center engineer Homer Hickam during the dedication of a plaque and launch pad honoring his achievements at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Madison County, in July 1999. The pad is used by rocket center students to launch homemade model rockets. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, courtesy of NASA)

Author and rocket scientist Homer Hickam reads from his bestselling book “Rocket Boys: A Memoir” during the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C., in June 2008. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, courtesy of NASA)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.