Homer Hickam

An American Talented Author, Vietnam Veteran former NASA Engineer is known for Homer Hickam. He is the one who trained the first Japanese Astronauts. His 1998 memoir was Rocket Boys which was a New York Times Best Seller and was the basis for the 1999 film “October Sky“. He has also written many novels including “Josh Thurlow” and his best selling novel is “Carrying Albert Home: The Somewhat True Story of a Man, his Wife, and her Alligator”.

Well Known For:

• Homer is the bestselling and award-winning author of many books, including memoir Rocket Boys.
• He is best known for Vietnam veteran, a former coal miner, a scuba instructor, an avid amateur paleontologist, and a retired engineer.

Early Life of Homer

Homer was born on 19th February 1943. Currently, he is 75 years old. His full name is Homer Hadley Hickam Jr. He was born in Coalwood, West Virginia in the city of United States. His nationality is American. He is the son of Homer Sr. and Elsie Gardener Hickam, his parents. He was graduated from Big Creek High School in 1960. After that, he attended Virginia Tech in 1960 and graduated in 1964 with a Bachelor of Science degree in industrial engineering. His sun sign is Pisces.

Career of Homer

• From 1967-1968, he served as a 1st Lieutenant of the U.S Army during the Vietnam War.
• He was also awarded the Army Commendation Medal and a Bronze Star Medal and later he was honorably discharged at the rank of captain in the year 1970.
• He began his career in writing after returning from Vietnam War.
• His first writings were magazine stories about scuba diving and his time as a scuba instructor.
• Later from 1971-1978, he worked as an engineer for the United States Army Aviation and Missile Command.
• He was an engineer for the 7th Army Training Command in Germany between 1978 to 1981.
• Later in the year 1981, He was hired as an aerospace engineer by NASA at Marshall Space Flight Center, which is located on the Redstone Arsenal and worked in spacecraft design and crew training.
• He trained astronaut crews for numerous Spacelab and Space Shuttle missions, including the Hubble Space Telescope deployment mission, Solar Max repair mission and many more.
• He was retired from NASA in the year of 1998.
• His second book was Rocket Boys, which was published by Delacorte Press in the year 1998. This book is based on the story of his life as the son of a coal miner in Coalwood, West Virginia. This book was selected by “The New York Times”.
• This book has been translated into many languages and also the audiobooks have been released.
• His first fiction novel was Back to the Moon (1999).
• After books, he began his popular “Josh Thurlow” series, set during World War II.
• His first series was “The Keeper’s Son” in the year 2003. It was continued with “The Ambassador’s Son (2005)” and “The Far Reaches (2007)”.
• In the year 2010, he co-authored My Dream of Stars (2010).
• In the year 2015, Wm Morrow/HarperCollins published his best-selling “Carrying Albert Home: The Somewhat True Story of a Man, His Wife, and Her Alligator”, which has since been published in 17 languages and won many awards.
• Hickam sued Universal Studios for fraud and breach of contract over rights to his Rocket Boys sequels in the year 2017.
• Later, the lawsuit was settled in 2017 to Hickam’s satisfaction.

Award of Homer

• In the year 2007, Hickam was awarded an honorary doctorate in Literature from Marshall University.
• In the year 2013, Hickam won the Clarence Cason Award from the University of Alabama.
• In the year 2014, Hickam won the Appalachian Heritage Writer’s Award at Shepherd University.

Affairs of Homer

Homer is a married man. He is married to Linda Terry Hickam in the year 1998. They are living a happy life.

Net Worth of Homer

The net worth of American author and former NASA engineer is estimated to have $1 Million. His salary is still to unfold and will be updated soon.