Homer Hickam

That fix could cost more than $400,000, and City Council will get together tonight at 6 o'clock.

West Virginia space pioneer Homer Hickam is excited about the potential of the state hosting or being the host site for the United States Space Academy, typical or comparable to, say, maybe West Point or the Naval Academy.

The McDowell County native and former NASA engineer talked a little bit about the aerospace industry on Metro News Talk Line and said that, you know, now that NASA is not the only player in the aerospace industry and you've got private companies that are looking to send rockets up into space for orbits or make moon trips or even like Elon Musk talks about a potential trip to the planet of Mars.

Well, that aerospace industry is going to need a whole lot of technical support, and a lot of that support is really already here.

Anyway, all right.

So in this episode, we are going to be looking at the 63rd highest-grossing movie of the year, just behind The 13th Warrior, which we just did a couple months ago, opening on February the 19th with just shy of $6 million and going on to gross $34.7 million worldwide on a $25 million budget, adapted from the memoir Rocket Boys by NASA engineer Homer Hickman.

and directed by Joe Johnston, beautifully shot by Journeyman cinematographer Fred Murphy, with a score by Mark Isham.

And starring newcomer Jake...

There have been the occasional slip ups.

TV's The Ewok Adventure and it's so bad it's really bad sequel Ewok's The Battle for Endor spring to mind like Tinky Winky in a broken blender.

Hey, no one's perfect, so it pains me to say that October Sky, the true story of Homer Hickman, a Colwood, West Virginia kid with a dream, is ploddingly earthbound.

He concludes, there's hope, heroism, and Dern is a dying schoolmarm, but October Sky falls flat, despite its rich tone and some startling cinematography by Fred Murphy.