The Rocket Boys

In the late 1950's, in and around the little mining town of Coalwood, West Virgina, six Big Creek High School students captured the attention of a nation by building and launching their own homemade rockets. America was still recovering from WW II and the cold war with the Soviets was beginning to heat up. The Russians had just launched their first Sputnik spacecraft and the American space program was still in its infancy.

McDowell County of that era had only one industry . . . coal. Nearly every man you met was a coalminer and young men were generally expected to follow the family traditions of employment in the coalmines. Those who aspired to greater things and dreamed of a life beyond the coalfields had to become motivated, self-starters if they were to follow their dreams. But these Big Creek students were intrigued by the coming Space Age and were determined to be a part of it.

They called themselves the "Big Creek Missile Agency", but the name that most remember was the one given to them by the residents of Coalwood: "the rocket boys". Their first rocket, using handmade components with flashlight casings for the rocket body and powder removed from cherry bombs for fuel, exploded on the ground and destroyed Mrs. Hickam's rose garden fence, causing an uproar in the small community. In spite of their early failures and the criticism from friends and neighbors over the potential danger in their experiments, they were not to be stopped. Armed with the strength of their determination and aided by a diverse assortment of local supporters, the Rocket Boys continued their quest to successfully launch their rockets. 

And succeed they did! Between 1957 and 1960, the Rocket Boys launched dozens of rockets of ever increasing sophistication. Using a college textbook on rocket propulsion supplied by their mentor and advisor, Big Creek High math teacher Freida Riley, they taught themselves the advanced physics and complex mathematical formulas necessary to design, build and launch bigger and better rockets. They began building steel bodied rockets using the same convergent nozzle combustion chamber with divergent cone exit chamber used on modern rockets. The two fuels they used for most of their rockets were made from potassium nitrate and sugar, which they called "rocket candy", and a combination of zinc dust, sulphur, and alcohol, which they called "zincoshine" (generally made from West Virginia moonshine).

Ultimately, their efforts won for them the Gold and Silver medal in the National Science Fair of 1960.

The original members of the "Big Creek Missile Agency" were Homer "Sonny" Hickam (from Coalwood), Quentin Wilson (from Bartley), Roy Lee Cooke (from Coalwood), Sherman Siers (from Coalwood), Jimmie O'Dell Carroll (from the Frog Level camp of Coalwood), and William "Billy" Rose (from Coalwood). Sherman Siers is deceased now.

At least one of the Rocket Boys was able to touch the Final Frontier. Homer Hickam was an engineer for NASA from 1981 until his recent retirement. There he worked on several projects including the International Space Station slated for construction over the next couple of years. During this time, Homer wrote an historical account of the WW II U-Boat campaign along the Eastern Atlantic seaboard called "Torpedo Junction", and many articles for various magazines including a story about the Rocket Boys for the Smithsonian Air & Space magazine. 

This particular article was to once again bring the Rocket Boys national attention. 

Homer Hickam's Web Site is located at www.homerhickam.com.  Visit this awesome site when you get a chance and tell 'em we sent ya!