5 Spot | Rocket Boys/October Sky author Homer Hickam 

Rocket Boys/October Sky author and retired NASA engineer Homer Hickam (HomerHickam.com) will be in town to sign his latest romance/adventure novel Red Helmet on Feb. 14 at 8 p.m. at Kingsbury Hall (after the Jim Brickman Show) and on Feb. 15 at 7 p.m. at Barnes & Noble Sugarhouse, 1104 E. 2100 South.

The character wearing the titular red helmet in your new book is an Asian woman. How often do you encounter women in the male-dominated coal mining industry?
Actually, she’s all-American, a rich, tough businesswoman from New York City with an Anglo father who is a ruthless acquirer of companies, her mother a deceased Hong Kong heiress. As for women in the coal mines. there’s a few. The starting salary of $50,000 is very attractive. Still, the work is claustrophobic, the hours terrible to try to also raise a family, so this keeps the numbers of women miners small.

You’ve written novels, memoirs and self-help books. How was writing this romance/murder mystery a challenge for you as a writer?
No great stretch. In fact, I had a great deal of fun writing it. I’m an eclectic writer and don’t like to get pinned down to one genre. My publisher hates that because I can’t be branded like a John Grisham but I still have a knot of rabid fans who love all my stuff. Next up is a romantic thriller set in Montana titled The Dinosaur Hunter. I’m also an avid amateur paleontologist who recently found a T.rex.

While you set your sights on the skies by ultimately becoming a NASA engineer, you pay homage to your coal-mining roots in your novels. How did your upbringing in Coalwood leave such a lasting imprint?
I am now and forever a Coalwood boy, shaped by the people who raised me. Writing about my life there in Rocket Boys/October Sky was the most satisfying thing I’ve ever done. That book has gone on to be a classic. It is the most selected community and library read in the country, is studied or assigned in most school systems, and is presently being adapted into a Broadway musical. There were three sequels, all best sellers. Red Helmet marks my return to writing about my beloved people of the mountains, hollows, and mines, this time in a novel.

What’s your view on global warming and coal burning’s alleged contribution to it?
Global warming is a stew of politics and science. My advice is to ignore the Cassandras of doom and gloom. The truth is no one knows the truth. The USA should remain calm while working to keep pollution to a minimum. That’s just common sense. Coal, the only true American alternative energy source (we have more of it than anybody else), can be burned cleanly in modern plants. That would be cheaper and more effective than anything we could do to stop polluting while also maintaining a healthy economy. I’m confident this will happen. Our country has a tradition of always doing the right thing after it’s tried everything else.

Did you follow last August’s Crandall Canyon mine collapse in Utah which trapped six miners and took the lives of three rescuers?
Just as with the Quecreek and Sago mine accidents, I was called on by the national media to comment on Crandall Canyon. My advice was for a steady, well-engineered rescue operation to proceed as quickly as possible. Crandall Canyon, as I kept pointing out, was on a geological fault and therefore care was required. I also kept saying that the miners should be recovered no matter what. I was appalled when they were just left there. We’re Americans. We do not walk away from our honored dead. It’s a disgrace.

How do you feel about the way the Crandall Canyon disaster was handled?
I don’t believe there was a soul involved with the Crandall Canyon disaster that didn’t do their best to rescue those men. However, I vehemently disagree with leaving them entombed in there. Those miners and their families deserve better. It’s one of the reasons I’m in the forefront to create a National Miners Day. See HomerHickam.com for more information on that movement plus my scholarship program for the children of coal miners.

How do you think local readers will react to reading about a similar disaster in your new book?
Red Helmet is first and foremost a love story. It is also dedicated to “mine rescue teams everywhere.” If you’ve ever wondered what’s really going on behind the scenes during a mine disaster, it’s all there.

You enjoyed a long career as a NASA engineer. Should Americans be excited by what NASA is doing at the moment?
We have a great little space program if the politicians would just let it go forward. We’ve built a nice space station and now we’re building the vehicles to go back to the moon. Obama intends to shut down NASA’s human spaceflight program (there’s change for you) and Hillary is ambivalent. It doesn’t seem to be on McCain’s radar screen yet. Ultimately, we’ll get the space program we deserve.

Which (if any) NASA project should we be most embarrassed or outraged about?
We face a five-year gap between retirement of the Shuttle in 2010 and the new Constellation vehicle. I have no confidence that once shut down, our human spaceflight program will ever get back on track.

You wrote a science-fiction story titled Back to the Moon. Why haven’t there been more recent missions to the moon?
The USA turned to the Space Shuttle, which is incapable of going to the moon except in my novel you mention. That’s an exciting read, folks!

You run five miles a day, you write wholesome and uplifting novels, you do good in the world. Do you have any bad habits or vices?
Yes, but surely you don’t expect me to tell you what they are! Anyway, I don’t think there’s much wholesome about the last two Josh Thurlow novels. Keep the kids away from those!