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<\/a>If you recall the film or the book, Homer Hickam (Kyle Selig), whose father is a coalminer, is inspired by the October 1957 launch of Sputnik, the Russian spaceship that was Earth\u2019s first manmade orbiter.<\/p>\n Young Homer, who \u201clooks to the stars,\u201d determines to devote himself to rocketry and enlists some high school friends to help. They are the nerd outcast Quentin (Connor Russell), the abused Roy Lee (Patrick Rooney) and the affable klutz, O\u2019Dell (Austyn Myers). Their enterprise is called \u201cThe Big Creek Missile Agency.\u201d The boys are supported by the mine\u2019s metal-shop foreman, Ira Bykovski (Joel Blum), who at first manufactures rockets for them, and then teaches them the fundamentals, and Miss Riley (Sandra DeNise) their schoolteacher, who gives them a rocketry guidebook and then urges them to enter the science fair.<\/p>\n John Hickam (powerful baritone Ron Bohmer), Homer\u2019s hardworking father, thinks Homer\u2019s ideas are mere dreams. His plan, since Homer\u2019s older brother is going to college on a football scholarship, is to have Homer follow him into the mines immediately upon high school graduation. Homer knows that if that happens he will be like the legions of other men, \u201cNever Getting Out Alive,\u201d and he vows \u201cWe\u2019re Gonna Build a Rocket\u201d as a means of escape.<\/p>\n Elsie Hickam (Kerry O\u2019Malley), Homer\u2019s mother, is also the boys\u2019 supporter as is high school age Dorothy (Eliza Palasz) who never doubts Homer or the success of the \u201cMissile Agency.\u201d<\/p>\n Many circumstances get in the way of Homer\u2019s success, not the least of which is paternal disapproval and disdain, a common theme. But the boys eventually triumph (in real life, Homer winds up with NASA).<\/p>\n<\/a>