How October Sky Relates To Math A Website by Sarah Wright

.......

.......

.......

Just so you know, there are a few things that differ from the book (Rocket Boys, written by the REAL Homer Hickam) to the movie...

-Homer's name is not Homer in the book. He used his nickname, "Sonny." His mother gave him the nickname but the Great Six (his Coalwood school teachers) had their own ideas on how it should be spelled...
-Homer's Dad's name is not John, it is Homer. Homer, Jr. (Sonny) was named after his father...
- The Rocket Boys were a group of SIX boys not four...
- The Rocket Boys never stole railroad tracks for rocket supply money. They did, however, go after the cast iron pipe underneath the tracks. Homer almost lost his life doing it...
- Homer did not quit school to go work in the mines...
- The Rocket Boys did not win scholarships to go to college. They received, however, a far greater gift...

Click here to read an awesome essay by Homer Hickam on how Miss Riley inspired him!

The path of a rocket goes in a parabola, with it's take-off and landing points as the x-intercepts. For example, say the path of the rocket is -x squared plus 2x plus 5. The path of the rocket would be as shown below. Certain rocket equations are a bit complicated, but click here for a "simple" run down of the equation to find the highest point of the path of the rocket, the altitude. When mixing the chemicals for the rocket, you have a mass mixture ratio, the amount of oxidizer (the substance providing oxygen for thrust) to fuel. "Science requires math..." ~Miss Riley To find how far the rocket fell, you can use the equation S equals 1/2 times a times t squared where S is distance in feet, a is acceleration, or 32.2 feet per second, and t is the time in seconds the rocket took to fall.

The Rocket Boys used a theodolite, or at least an upside down protractor on a broomstick with a ruler rotating along a nail on the opposing side. At the height of the rocket's climb, they measured the angle the ruler made with the protractor. Then, they measured the distance of the path of the rocket. They then multiplied this number by the tangent of their angle to find the approximate altitude of their rocket.

Links

Homer Hickam's Official Site
NASA Spacelink
Mystery Link