Florida Today from Cocoa, Florida • Page 7

7A HICKAM FLORIDA TODAY, Monday, March 29, 1999 IS war BRAND NEW '99 V-6 SUZUKI GRAND VITARAJS GREAT SOUTHEAST SflMMf Hickam talks about NASA years, hopes for space f' -w I HI' Vf -71 U- 'If "-V-'riv. The Hickam file Bom Feb. 19, 1943 and raised in Coalwood, W.Va. Won Gold and Silver Medal for rocketry at National Science Fair, 1960 Graduated from Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 1964, with a degree in industrial engineering Served in Amry Fourth Infantry Division in Vietnam, 1967-68; awarded Army Commendation and Bronze Star Medals Engineer for the U.S. Army Missile Command, 1971-81 Aerospace technician engineer with NASA, 1981-1998; included work on Hubble Space Telescope deployment and repairs, Spacelab-J and Solar Max repair mission Author of Rocket Boys, Torpedo Junction and Back to the Moon, to be published in June hl mas mis hi.

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be combined with other coupons. 41099 I Con not be combined with other We accept insurance: Medicare, MetLife, offers. Most present coupon. Expires VSP, Davis Vision, Medicaid, Aetna US Healthcare, Blue Cross, Blue Shield, Champus, Tricare Editor's note: Today we brine you Part 2 of an interview with Homer Hickam author of Rocket Boys, which has been adapted to the big screen as "October Sky," now playing in area theaters. In Sunday's Part 1, Florida Today Editorial Page Editor Pam Piatt spoke with Hickam about his West Virginia roots, and what propelled him away from the coal mining career of his father and toward the rocketry dreams of his own.

(It you missed Part 1 and would like to read it, check out the Florida Today weft page at www.floridatoday.com space today) In this second part of the interview, their conversation continues as Hickam talks about his work with NASA as an engineer, and the plotline he would write for the space agency for the next 25 years: Does It bother you that we've been talking for a while and there hasn't been one mention of your work with NASA and on the Hobble repair missions? HICKAM: No, that's fine. The era we're talking about is before I worked for NASA. I don't want to inflate my role in Hubble, in terms of both deployment and repair mission. I was strictly a grunt on both of them. I worked in the tank, in the suit, I helped come up with the procedures necessary but I was not the lead by any means.

Most of my work was with Spacelab flight, especially Space-lab J. The last five years with NASA was the International Space Station being the training manager for the science aboard it. Those were the areas I worked the most, but all of my work with NASA was very fulfilling. I kept turning down promotions because I loved so much what I was doing and I was also free-lance writing on the side. I didn't want to get into top level management.

Being in the crew training area, I was able to get some hands-on with real hardware and at the same time work with the astronauts and the scientists whose science was flying aboard. I took as the most important part of job to make sure those scientists got their experiments performed correctly, because most of the principal investigators had spent at least 10 years developing i 6 1 have another book coming out in June, Back to the Moon. This is a novel, entirely fiction, a techno-thriller about the next time Americans go to the moon. This book came from a certain level of frustration I think all the NASA grunts have with the space program. 5 their experiment.

That meant they had really committed themselves, or their teams, to do this experiment. They had fought for funds and personnel and they only had one shot and it either worked or didn't. So I took it as a personal responsibility to make sure the crew was properly trained to perform the experiments, to make sure the simulators worked precisely as required. And every chance I got I dragged the astronauts out to the lab where the scientist was. It wasn't always easy for me or them, because they're always pretty busy.

But I did everything to get them out to see the real science and to understand how desperately important it was to the scientist that their experiment was performed precisely and also for the scientist to get the opportunity to understand that was a real, living, breathing person up there operating their science. That was the most satisfying part of my career. Did you place part of one of yonr old rockets on one of the shuttles? MAN, MUM A ISNTTT AMAZING WHAT A HHNWN6 SEASON XV5! CANPO nemousf ABOUT timr TO HOMER HICKAM JR. HICKAM: Dr. Takao Doi was one of the Japanese astronauts I trained and we got to be very, very good friends.

When all of this started to happen with the movie and book, I told him about it and my science fair medal and the one remnant of a rocket from those days. He said he'd really like to take them into orbit with him. He was flying STS-87. 1 said, sure that would be wonderful if you'd fly the medal and the little bolt from the rocket engine. He forgot the bolt but he flew the medal.

So Dr. Chiaki Mukai heard about it and said she would take the bolt, and she did. And that turned out to be the John Glenn flight. How fabulous. That must have meant so much to you.

HICKAM: Again, I'm getting back to the mystical part of it. It was very, very special. There has to be a higher reason for this, something more than having a best-seller and a successful movie. One thing that's very interesting is that I'm getting back to my propulsion roots because of all this and because I retired from NASA. The propulsion people at Marshall Space Flight Center have kind of adopted me.

I've been invited out to see what they're doing on advanced propulsion drives. They're having a seminar next month and I've been invited to give the keynote and stick around for all their discussions. I just love being back into rocketry. Are you writing another book? HICKAM: I have another book coming out in June, Back to the Moon. This is a novel, entirely fiction, a techno-thriller about the next time Americans go to the moon.

This book came from a certain level of frustration I think all the NASA grunts have with the space program. Most of us signed up to help the astronauts go somewhere to the moon, to Mars. And for our entire careers, for those of us who came into the program after Apollo, we've supported the shuttle, which basically doesn't go anywhere except in circles around the Earth. It's a wonderful machine, a magnificent machine. Nevertheless and I think I can speak for most of the grunts here we'd like to see a return to the idea that space is a destination and a place to work rather than a political program.

If you could write a plotline for NASA that would take it through 2025, what would that be? HICKAM: The first thing I would do is commercialize everything in low Earth orbit. I'd get NASA out of that business. Then the next logical step would be to fund three advanced propulsion programs. I would make that NASA's entire focus. I would choose fission, fusion and anti-matter.

And I would give them five years each with as much money as I could beg, borrow or steal from Congress. I would give the managers five years to cut metal and build machines and get as close to fielding one of these units as we possibly could. Then I would pick one of the three, and for the next 10 years I would have a crash program to develop it. I believe we could field one or the other in that 15-year period. If that was done, it would absolutely bust open the entire space paradigm.

We would have a machine capable of going to moon in hours, to Mars in days or weeks, rather than months and years. I New Store Hours (9 Late Nisht Appointments) Mon. Wed. 10 AM -9PM, Tue. Thurs 10AM-6PM, Fit Sat 9AM-4PM 1950 Wickham Rd, Melbourne Northsate Shopping Center Next To Old America Satisfaction Guaranteed ixpra i A fin retmoursed tor payment lor any other service, exam, or reduced fee, or reduced tee service, exam or In I believe this is the way we will return to the moon and Mars, and the next time humans go back to the moon it will be to test drive one of these units.

Just have a little excursion out to the moon. If we wanted to go back to the moon now, we'd pretty much have to redo Apollo Basically I want to skip over that step and go straight for these big drives. How long do you think it will take for us to get back to the moon or Mars? HICKAM: My crystal ball is cloudy. It depends on the next administration, how they perceive space. If they perceive it the same as this presidential administration and the ones before it, it will be perhaps never that we'll go back to the moon.

GfiYou know what? I'd like to see Coalwood on the moon. I'd like to see a town up there, I'd like to read a memoir by a young boy raised on the moon complaining about his father always interested in mining helium 3.55 Right now space is looked upon as either a science laboratory or a political arena. I think space needs to be looked upon as a resource, as a place where work might be done, where raw resources might be gained You sound like your dad. HICKAM: Oh, yes, I quickly turn into my dad. You know what? I'd like to see Coalwood on the moon.

I'd like to see a town up there, I'd like to read a memoir by a young boy raised on the moon complaining about his father always interested in mining helium 3. I'd love that. Space ought to be treated like a place where you work and make profits and people have jobs that are meaningful. Forget about going to the stars right now. Let's just talk about settling the solar system.

We need to have a great debate on what we want to do with space if it's forever going to be a dream, or a toy for politicians. Or are we serious about going out and settling it, conquering it, changing it to fit humanity, and to benefit humanity. I think NASA Administrator Dan Goldin feels the same way. He has done the best he could with what he's got. He had to bring in space station, he had to make it work and my hat's off to him.

Space station is a good thing. For one thing, we're learning how to assemble large objects in space, and good things will come out of it. There probably were a lot cheaper alternatives. But it's what's on NASA's plate now and they have to finish it. But I'd like to see NASA go into propulsion.

I'd like to see 90 percent of every dollar spent in space to go into these advanced propulsion drives, or else we'll be forever stuck in low-Earth orbit. NOWAY mAtDUPe. SHEPIPFULC i OWN FRONTAL IN the TAPE, OKAY? Tne patient eno tny otner person responsme lor payment lias trie nam to refuse to pay. cancel payment, or De treatment which la performed as a result ol and within 72 ha. of responding to Die ad for the FREE, discounted Dr.

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