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" Personally, I've got bigger hopes for NASA. I will stipulate it should keep putting telescopes in space so we can figure out where we fit in the universe, and it should also keep building those little robots that can and do. "

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" Tired of burning fossil fuel and polluting the planet? The moon is covered with helium 3, an isotope from the sun that is the perfect fuel for clean fusion reactors. "

Homer Hickam

Planet

Perfect

Moon

" 'Rocket Boys,' for one reason or the other, just happened to strike a chord across country and across world, maybe because it's set in a little coal-mining town. That's why NASA likes it - most of the engineers come from towns very similar. "

" After marketing surveys by Universal Studios indicated that 'Rocket Boys' as a movie title would not attract the female over-age-thirty demographic, the film was retitled and released as 'October Sky.' "

" What kind of country just recycles its old money, reminisces about what used to be, and doesn't know how to weld, to machine, to cast or to bolt things together? Not one that's on a path to future greatness, that's for certain. "

" Interestingly, 'October Sky' is an anagram of 'Rocket Boys', the same letters just moved around. This was discovered by director Joe Johnston using an anagram program on his computer. "

" All my life, everything important that had ever happened had always happened somewhere else. But Sputnik was right there in front of my eyes in my backyard... I felt that if I stretched out enough, I could touch it. "

" My dad was a miner, but he was very much an intellectual. He loved to read. "

" When I was a boy, one of my favorite places to go was a pine-filled hollow high on the mountain behind our house. It was a place where the industrial song of Coalwood subsided. I would sit on a dead log and listen to nothing except the beating of my own heart and the thoughts racing through my head. "

" Persevere with a plan to reach your passion, and life will be good. "

" Remember, it isn't the dreamers who have good lives - it's the doers. Remember also what I call the three Ps of success: passion, planning, and perseverance. "

" I have the best fans of any author in the country and they deserve the best from me, too! "

" After I'd gotten a year under my belt in college, I thought I'd outgrown my home. "

" To be a great nation and a great people, you have to do great things. "

" My father lost an eye to a snapped cable while trying to rescue trapped miners, though he kept on working for fifteen years afterward. "

" Rational thought will always trump medieval dogma. "

" I always give a little talk before I sign books and ask for questions. I love the Q&A sessions. We have a lot of fun at my book signings. I make sure of that! "

" Coalwood, West Virginia, is the little coal-mining town where I grew up, and it was there that five other teenage boys and I famously built and launched rockets. I recounted this story in my memoir, 'Rocket Boys.' "

Homer Hickam

Rocket

Story

" I want to make the conquest of the moon the United States' goal for the 21st century and, through that goal, to make us a great and good and happy country for generations to come. "

" A memoir is not an autobiography. It's a true story told as a novel, using techniques of novelization. The author is allowed to compress events, combine characters, change names, change the sequence of events, just as if he's writing a novel. But it's got to be true. "

" The time frame is summer 1961, a year after the gold medal in the National Science Fair. I always saw my 'Coalwood' books as a trilogy. This book finishes the story of my life in Coalwood. I think it's the best of the three. "

" Glenn's 1962 Mercury flight was fraught with dramatics, from his 'Zero G and I feel fine!' exultation upon entering orbit to his reentry with what was feared was a faulty heat shield. After he safely splashed down, the nation erupted with applause and gratitude not seen since Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic. "

" NASA's charter is to give Americans the means to get into the wild, black yonder, beyond even the grasp of the federal government that funded it. "

" I grew up listening to my dad, a miner who rose through the ranks to be the mine superintendent in Coalwood, W.V. , yelling orders into his black company phone. He wanted to get coal out of the ground and into coal cars and on its way to steel mills. "

" One thing we've learned about space is that the human body starts to fall apart after relatively short exposures to microgravity. "

" I have always found the best way to live is to be optimistic and energetic and willing to work hard for my dreams as well as the dreams of others. "

" I've seen the government up close and personal, and for the most part, it's inefficient and hidebound, and it stifles creativity in any industry it clutches within its well-meaning but slimy tentacles. "

" If politicians want to save money, that's fine. They can look for all the wasteful spending they want, but not where the lives of miners are involved. "

" For a country like ours that needs to stay ahead of the world or go under, we must do great, ambitious things - like going to the moon - to survive. "

" When the moon was first visited in 1969, the astronauts brought back a treasure trove of unique minerals. Contained within specimens was an isotope called Helium-3, which turns out to be the perfect fuel for fusion reactors. "

" Throughout my childhood, when I raised my blanket in the morning, I saw a black, sparkling powder float off it. My socks were always black with coal dirt when I took off my shoes at night. "