Research Paper On October Sky

In the movie, October Sky, Homer Hickam went through a lot of struggles and trials, but still ended up successful because of his qualities. Although Homer went through a lot of ups and downs, he still stayed determined, motivated, and strong-willed. In Coalwood, the regular job for men were to be a coal miner or a football player. The only way to get a scholarship was through these jobs, so it was inevitable that Holmer would be a miner. But one day in October, Homer watched the rocket launch of Sputnik and immediately gets inspired and starts to have an interest in rockets. So Homer and his friends started launching rockets and got some attention from the town and eventually entered a science fair where him and the rocket boys could win a scholarship and go to college. Homer ended up winning and went to college with the rest of the rocket boys.

Through the process of all this Holmer’s dad strongly believed that he shouldn’t be wasting his time on building rockets and instead be working in the coal mine with him; and even goes as far as to say that he can’t launch rockets on private property, which forces Homer and his friends to walk 8 miles back and forth everyday just to work on rockets.

But in the end his dad eventually goes to one of his rocket launches and sees how much Homer wants to do this and becomes proud of him. So even having to go through 16 miles a day Holmer still persevered and stayed determined and didn’t let anyone get in his way. And at the day of the science fair he posted a picture of his idol (Wenher Braun) and some materials to help him explain things better to people but when he comes back all of his things got stolen, even the picture. But with the support of his dad and the people in Coalwood, Virginia, he got new supplies and even shook hands with his idol, even though Holmer didn’t realize that he did. So in the end Homer stays determined, motivated and he persevered through all of

it.

His qualities helped him succeed in the end because now he works for NASA and at one point the U.S Army. If he didn’t stay motivated and gave up and just worked at the coal mine its possible we wouldnt know as much things about space as we do now. And this relates back to us teens today because if we don’t try to do anything and stop becoming motivated to do anything then we would go no where in life. Holmer showed that in life, we need to do more than we think we can, to see what we are fully capable of. So, if we stay determined teens could do a lot more things that could contribute to to the world.