Back to the Moon

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Overview

The shuttle is hijacked. Now the countdown to adventure begins....

In his #1 New York Times bestselling memoir, October Sky, real-life NASA engineer Homer Hickam captured the excitement of America's first space ventures. Now, in this no-holds-barred joyride of a thriller, he straps us into the cockpit of the space shuttle Columbia as a renegade rocket man hijacks the shuttle—and blasts off on a Mach-speed chase into space....

Jack Medaris is a man haunted by his past and driven by a dream: He's risking everything to "borrow" the Columbia—and pilot it to the moon. He didn't plan on an unexpected passenger, beautiful celebrity daredevil and scientist Penny High Eagle. To Penny, this hijacking will test every bit of her mettle as an adventurer—and as a woman. To Jack, the mission is a personal quest—to return to the moon and bring back what America left behind, something so explosive, it could change the future of the world. Now, as the U.S. government scrambles to the chase, and as deadly forces are deployed from earth to stop them, a man and a woman find their fates inextricably entwined. And in the savage emptiness of deep space, their only hope is to join forces to reach the lunar surface. Then comes the hard part. Getting home alive.

Editorial Reviews

Anita Gates

[Hickham's] boyish, eager idealism is showing again in his first try at fiction, and it's charmingly contagious..... [O]ne of the strengths of this readable, diverting novel is that the reader isn't absolutely sure who's good and who's bad until very near the end....Hickam is also adept at false scares...and nifty plot twists....This is not great literature, but it is about great dreams. Being reminded of them is a little like revisiting the New Frontier.
— The New York Times Book Review \ \ \ \ \ \

Publishers Weekly

From the informed imagination of the author of Rocket Boys: A Memoir (finalist for an NBCC Award; made into the movie October Sky), Hickham's fanciful debut novel reads like an Indiana Jones adventure-in-space. It's 2002 on Cedar Key, Fla., and former NASA engineer Jack Medaris's high-tech company makes plans to send a rocket to the moon. The mission is to bring back a quantity of the rare isotope helium-3 to power a reactor that will supply the earth with clean fusion energy for centuries to come. When the space vehicle is destroyed by shadowy conspirators, Jack decides to "legally" hijack the space shuttle Columbia. Just before Columbia takes off on its meticulously planned orbit mission, the renegade astronauts attempt to displace the scheduled crew, an unlikely all-female bunch Hickam has rendered ridiculous by portraying them as catfighting shrews. In the fracas, Jack's veteran shuttle pilot is fatally wounded and the Native American prima donna Penny High Eagle--a gorgeous celebrity biologist, bestselling author and the object of contempt from the original female crew--winds up in space with Jack. With romance blossoming in zero gravity, international forces collide as a sinister fossil-fuel consortium conspires to destroy the shuttle. Onetime NASA-engineer Hickam packs his narrative with complicated space-program minutiae, risking his readers' comprehension of the wild plot. Riddled with space jargon acronyms (LEM, EVA, etc.), the cosmic romp both enthralls and numbs. But as Hickam's tale heats up, the reader's tenacity pays off, and the rocket ride achieves high velocity. Major ad/promo; author tour. (June) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

More Reviews (3) Fewer Reviews

Library Journal

It's the year 2002. No more moonshots. Cape Canaveral has been abandoned. The U.S. president is about to sign the World Energy Treaty outlawing nuclear power and thus dooming future space travel. A renegade scientist highjacks a space shuttle and pilots it to the moon, where there is a rare isotope of helium that, combined with seawater, generates cheap, clean fusion power. Sound familiar? We're back in the world of Fifties sf by authors like Heinlein, Clarke, and Asimov. Hickam, a former NASA scientist and author of the acclaimed memoir Rocket Boys, has written this sweet novel of high-spirited adventure--of guys and gals in space--with a decidedly upbeat message. "This rocket flies on dreams," says the hero. You better believe it! Recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/15/99.]--David Keymer, California State Univ., Stanislaus Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Anita Gates

Kirkus Reviews

Former NASA engineer and author of Rocket Boys (1998), the coming-of-age story that became the movie October Sky, tries his hand at a thriller. In 2002, NASA's operations are pretty ho-hum, at least from the point of view of the widowed Jack Medaris, a former astronaut who's bored with the low-orbit missions of the shuttles and feels that the promise of Apollo has been betrayed. Jack is working on a project called "Prometheus" with a brilliant physicist named Isaac Perlman. Prometheus is a robot miner destined for the moon, but Perlman has an even more ambitious design: to create fusion, using the element helium-3, which is in short supply on earth but abundant on the moon. Widespread use of fusion to generate power on earth would ensure a land rush to the moon and finally enable humankind's move into space. Although there's plenty of funding for all this from a group called Millennium, they are also saboteurs of the project, since in truth the Millennials are Luddites who oppose space flight. The plot thickens when Jack is visiting the Cape on the day of the last launch of the shuttle Columbia. Jacks divines that something is wrong with the launch and boards the great ship in an attempt to save the day. Then he finds himself bound for the moon, along with the all-female crew and his love interest, a famous reporter. This, too, is the work of the Millennials. Their somewhat confused purpose unravels, however, and Jack is able to dramatize the grand benefits of space flight, introduce the clean-fusion process to an energy-hungry, polluted world, and find true love as well. Hickam is a clunky writer, but his vast knowledge of the politics and hardware of spacefaring shines through,filling the reader with hope that marvelous things still await us.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780440235385
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Publication date: 5/1/2000
Format: Mass Market Paperback
Pages: 512
Sales rank: 625,077
Product dimensions: 4.50 (w) x 7.00 (h) x 1.30 (d)

Meet the Author

Homer Hickam is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Rocket Boys, which was made into the acclaimed movie October Sky. A respected amateur historian, he is also the author of the military history best-seller Torpedo Junction, along with the popular historical novels The Keeper's Son and The Ambassador's Son. With such books as the award-winning memoir Sky of Stone, and the techno-thriller best-seller Back to the Moon, Hickam's talents clearly span many writing genres. He is a Vietnam combat veteran, a scuba instructor who has led underwater exploration teams across the world, a retired rocket scientist, and, recently, has become an avid field paleontologist. More than anything else, he loves to write. He is married to Linda Terry Hickam, an artist, who is also his assistant. They share their time with their cats between homes in Alabama and the U. S. Virgin Islands. Please see www.homerhickam.com for more information.

Read an Excerpt

An Excerpt from Back to the Moon

"What?" He knows my name. Jack was startled by the sound of heavy boots pounding on the asphalt. He didn't have time to react. Someone big, dressed in black, came out of the lights, tackled him, knocked him down, and fell on top of him. Jack landed on his back, his head hitting the concrete stoop. Everything dimmed. He struggled for consciousness. He grabbed the man, pulled at his arm, felt something give way. It was a patch on his shoulder, a piece of black Velcro. There was a flash of gold letters, just for an instant. Puckett Security Services. Then he felt himself being rolled over, his hands jerked behind him. Something hot dripped down his neck. Handcuffs clicked shut on his wrists.

"Cut the wires, all of 'em," somebody said.

Jack was blearily aware of men running past him, battering at the door. He heard it tear from its hinges. There was no alarm. The man in the yellow shirt knelt beside him. "Milli Vanilli means I pretended to kick your ass while somebody more qualified did the work." He laughed and then abruptly turned deadly serious. "Take him inside."

Jack was ruthlessly jerked by his wrists, pushed into the hangar, through the doors, all hanging from their hinges. Two men, dressed in black fatigues, clustered at the clean-room door. The yellow-shirted man walked in front of Jack. "The lander in there?" "I don't know what you're talking about. That's a clean room. We use it to inspect our pumps."

Using a flashlight, the man peered inside, Prometheus glittering in the spot of his light like a giant tin man. "Doesn't look like a pump to me, Mr. Medaris."

Jack tore loose from his captor, ran for the door. He had to get help. He was quickly caught, thrown to the floor. His shoulder felt as if it had been dislocated. Jack groaned, kept struggling. "Get him out of here," the man said harshly.

Jack was jerked to his feet again. It felt as if a spear had been stuck in his shoulder and twisted. He couldn't help but cry out, although it shamed him to show weakness in front of these men. He looked over his shoulder, saw men in black fatigues batter down the clean-room door, go inside. Other men followed, carrying sledgehammers and cutting torches. Despite the pain Jack struggled to stop them. He was savagely driven to his knees, then dragged across the concrete, through the halls, out the door, thrown down onto the asphalt in front of the RV, its headlights now dimmed.

Nearly mad with impotent outrage, his head in a puddle of his own blood, Jack listened to the sound of smashing sledgehammers, glass breaking, the hiss of torches, more doors being battered down. The man in the yellow shirt stepped up, knelt down beside him. "Well, thank you, Mr. Medaris. It's been real. By the way, you ought to be more careful with the combustibles in your plant. I'm afraid it's caught on fire."

Jack struggled to raise his head, saw the flames licking out of the broken windows, an orange glow deep within. "Why?" he cried.

"Don't you know, Mr. Medaris?" the man said softly, his small dark eyes twinkling mischievously. "We did this for the benefit of all mankind."

Jack felt the heat of the flames against his skin. He turned away from it, trying not to think of the time when another fire had engulfed him and all that he loved. He involuntarily groaned, let his face down into his blood. He felt someone taking off the cuffs. He was roughly dragged to his feet. Blood still streamed down his neck. His shoulder felt as if it had been torn to shreds. His wrists were raw and bleeding. The men got back into the RV and drove away, left him standing alone. It turned away from Cedar Key, toward the main highway.

The hangar was an inferno by the time the volunteer fire department arrived ten minutes later. Trooper Buck was with them. Soon afterward the engineers of MEC, Doc Perlman, and the company lawyer, Cecil Velocci, arrived as well. They found Jack sitting in the parking lot, quietly watching the futile efforts of the firemen. When they reached down to help him, he pushed their hands away, then finally stood up under his own power. He growled at anyone who approached not to touch him. He held his shoulder, gritted his teeth against the pain, ignored the steady drip of blood puddling at his feet. The others were certain he'd gone insane.

The glow from the garish flames made the scar on his face and neck look as if it were on fire too. His eyes glittered as the flames reached solvents stored in a back room. The hangar burst apart, buckets of solvent flying into the sky, trailing long torrents of hot liquid fire. Jack said nothing, didn't move at all when everyone else fell back from the resulting volcano. He was thinking.

After the fire had died down, Jack turned to the throng. "Isaac, a word," he said quietly.

Perlman approached him, his eyes wide. "What happened?"

"Men came to destroy Prometheus. They knew all about it."

"How did they get in?"

Jack grimaced. "The gate was open."

Perlman was quiet for a moment. He might have been looking at Jack's dripping blood, scarlet in the glare of the burning hangar. "Jack, I'll have to tell my investors the circumstances. They may come after you, want their money back."

"They'll get their dirt," Jack growled.

"How?"

Jack's lip was split. He spat blood while the likely scenario played out across his mind. The company had insurance, but he could see the insurer accusing him of arson. A jury, hearing of his background, might conclude he was guilty. In any case, it would be tied up in court for years before he saw a dime. "Buck," he said quietly. The policeman came to him. "You ever hear of Puckett Security Services?"

Buck was six and a half feet tall in his cowboy boots, a formidable man and a secure presence on the little island. "Nope," he said. "That who did this?"

"Do you still have contacts with the FBI?" Jack asked.

"Sure. You want me to check it out for you?"

"Yes."

Buck leaned into Jack, his big broad face lit by the guttering flames. "I will on one condition. Let the paramedics take a look at you."

Jack relented, walked toward the ambulance. The people opened a lane for him. He kept his head down, not from pain or shame. He was still thinking. A fresh ocean breeze fanned the embers in the hangar and a torrent of flame suddenly roared alive.

Jack turned to watch the blaze and then saw the bloody crescent of the moon floating through the smoke. Luna. The face the moon showed the earth was pocked and scourged, but like many plain women she had a body that could still fill men with lust. Another sea breeze blew the smoke away and the crescent turned from scarlet to gold. Isaac Perlman coveted the golden dust that layered the moon, sifted into her cracked rock, coated her craters, seeped into her pores. He had revealed to Jack the moon's secret treasure: helium-3, blown through space for billions of years by the solar wind, laid down on Luna's airless surface. Perhaps, Jack realized, helium-3 was a threat to someone who might do anything to keep it off the earth. The moon also held another treasure. Kate. She waited for him at Frau Mauro. Jack's eyes slowly began to fill with determination.

"What are we going to do, boss?" Virgil asked, holding the door of the ambulance open.

"I'm still working on that, Virg," Jack said quietly as he climbed in. He sat on a bench, looked at the faces of his people, his happy and faithful few. "But I can tell you this much: We're not going to quit."

Interviews & Essays

On Wednesday, June 30th, barnesandnoble.com welcomed Homer Hickam Jr. to discuss BACK TO THE MOON.

Moderator: Welcome, Homer H. Hickam Jr.! Thank you for taking the time to join us online this evening to chat about your new book, BACK TO THE MOON. How are you doing tonight?

Homer H. Hickam Jr.: Well, I'm doing fine, and I'm happy to be with you, and I'm just going to be happy to answer questions as they come. I'm on the third week of a three-week book tour, and of course I have almost as many questions always, wherever I go, about ROCKET BOYS and OCTOBER SKY as about BACK TO THE MOON, and of course I'm always happy to answer questions about the book and the movie as well.

Meaghan from Greenwich, CT: How did you first become interested in space travel? Did you read about it? Do you think your books will inspire the next generation of space engineers?

Homer H. Hickam Jr.: Yes, I did read about it. There were a series of books written in the mid-1950s written by an author named Willy Ley, and he inspired me to read more, and I read a lot of science fiction when I was growing up. And yes, I would hope that my book ROCKET BOYS and the movie "October Sky" and now BACK TO THE MOON will help to inspire all the upcoming generations.

Yanek from Philadelphia, PA: How feasible is the hijacking you describe in your novel? How much, if any, is based on real events?

Homer H. Hickam Jr.: I spent many years working at Cape Canaveral, although my home base is in Huntsville, Alabama, also known as Rocket City, USA. And I think that after the officials at the Cape read my description of the hijacking they'll probably want to tighten up a little bit on some of their procedures. But in order to pull off the hijacking that I describe it would require the people doing it to be complete NASA insiders, and the likelihood of that happening, I suspect, is rather slim. But also, all of the events that are described in the book are technically feasible, and as a for instance, the description that I give of operating a tether in space has been tried before already with mixed results.

Jacques M. from Montana: I read that you had low math scores in school, and yet I always thought that was essential to an aerospace career. What do you think was the most essential key to success for you in your career?

Homer H. Hickam Jr.: I didn't have low math scores, I just had very little interest in math. I studied it and tried to make good grades, mainly because it was my job: to study whatever course was given to me, and a West Virginian always tries to do a good job. When I decided that I wanted to build rockets, I quickly understood that I had to know math, and advanced math, and so I began to teach myself calculus and differential equations, and then I never made any bad grades in math after that.

Mark Austin from Charlotte, NC: Mr. Hickam, I really enjoyed the movie version of OCTOBER SKY. I grew up during the late '50s and early '60s with space travel on the brain like so many others. I took my eight-year-old son to see the movie, and he enjoyed it as well. My question is, How factual was the movie version in representing your youth and rocketry interests, and was your father anything like the actor portraying him? I plan to buy the book.

Homer H. Hickam Jr.: I'm glad he added that final sentence, because that's what I was about to tell you! The movie left much out, of course, but I was involved with writing the screenplay of the movie, and I was also hired as a technical consultant, so I spent almost every day of shooting on set, and I worked very hard to get the characters in the film as close to correct as I could possibly get, within the limitations of moviemaking. You have very little time within the movie to really develop the character completely, and a lot of it has to do with the actors chosen to play those characters, and how they choose to play them. I think we were very lucky to get the actors that we had. Chris Cooper, who played my father, talked for hours about my father, and who he really was. The original screenplay just had him being mean. But he was never really mean, he was an intellectual, and a great engineer who loved Coalwood and thought that I would have a better chance for a good future in the town of Coalwood, and that's where we had our difference of opinion.

Coleman from Denver, CO: Do you prefer writing fiction and drawing from your imagination or drawing from your memory with memoirs?

Homer H. Hickam Jr.: Well, my answer to that is that writing a memoir is very, very tough. It requires bringing up a lot of emotion from the depths of your soul if you want to write an honest memoir. And though I enjoyed writing ROCKET BOYS, writing fiction is a lot easier because it's not about me or my family. But right now, I'm actually involved in writing what could be called the sequel to ROCKET BOYS, but actually I call it an e-quel, because it takes place during the same time as ROCKET BOYS, except it has to do with the last Christmas that we Rocket Boys spent in Coalwood, and it will be called A COALWOOD CHRISTMAS. That will be out in the fall of 2000, and I'm enjoying writing it, but what I intend to do is to alternate: Every other book will be fiction or nonfiction. Probably my next fiction book will be an adventure story about scuba diving since I'm a scuba instructor.

Penelope Wilkins from Ohio: How did you choose the title ROCKET BOYS, and how do you feel about the title OCTOBER SKY? Which do you prefer?

Homer H. Hickam Jr.: Well, I chose the title ROCKET BOYS primarily because that's what the story is about. The temptation in writing this story was to go out and write about a lot of the other interesting people that lived in Coalwood, so the title was one that helped me keep my focus. As far as OCTOBER SKY, actually that is still ROCKET BOYS, because OCTOBER SKY is an anagram of ROCKET BOYS, and as a matter of fact, that's the only anagram you can make with those letters. Joe Johnston, the director of the film, came up with this title by entering it into an anagram software application on his computer just for fun to see what would come out, and when "October sky" came out, it turned out that it was the same day that he had edited the scene in the movie where we boys had looked up into the October sky and seen Sputnik. And so he just thought it was meant to be, because Universal marketing insisted that the name be changed because it sounded just like another movie, ROCKET MAN. What do I think of the name OCTOBER SKY? I have learned to live with it, and the paperback that came out with the OCTOBER SKY title has been on the New York Times bestseller list for 18 weeks, and 3 weeks at No. 1, and that's helped me to love this title!

Pac87@aol.com from xx: What was the best part about being a NASA engineer?

Homer H. Hickam Jr.: The best part of being a NASA engineer was every morning, when I got up, I looked forward to the day. There was always something interesting going on, every day was a challenge, and I felt that I was contributing to something very, very important. And also, I got the chance to work with a lot of really nice and intelligent people, not only within NASA but around the world. I spent a year in Japan training the first Japanese astronauts. I spent many months in Europe working with European space engineers and astronauts. And some time in Russia also, working with the same men who had launched Sputnik. Now I'm enjoying a new career, and I have a very similar outlook, still, in that every morning, when I get up, I look forward to the day.

Kate from Houston, TX: Do you believe in extraterrestrial life? Or intelligent extraterrestrial life? How probable do you think it is that we will make contact in any of our lifetimes? Also, what do you think of "The X-Files"?

Homer H. Hickam Jr.: Well, that's a very complex question, and I guess it doesn't matter whether I believe in it or not, or whether you believe in it or not. It either is or is not. I hope that there is intelligent life out there. It would seem to me that the odds are very much on the side of there being life, if not intelligent life, in the universe besides us, but part of the problem of making contact with intelligent life has to do with time. Civilizations in the universe and the galaxy could rise and fall over the billions of years that the universe has existed without any of these civilizations ever making contact. So, it's not only distance, it's time that decreases the odds of us ever making contact with a sentient civilization. I watch "The X-Files" primarily to watch Scully.

Greg from Chicago, IL: I'd be interested to hear your take on what the focus of NASA will be for the 21st century. Any thoughts? What to you is the most exciting prospect in the future of space travel?

Homer H. Hickam Jr.: I'm often invited to consult with the propulsion lab at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, and right now, they are actually cutting metal on -- I wouldn't even call them rocket engines -- they are more in the arena of space drives. These are machines that use energy sources such as fission, fusion, and antimatter. I know that sounds like science fiction, but the engineers in Huntsville believe they could field one of these drives in ten years. As a matter of fact, they will receive their first antimatter to work with in three months. If they get the support that they need from NASA and our leaders, they're certain that they can build one of these space drives. And what that will mean is that we will be able to go to the moon in a few hours, and to Mars in a few weeks rather than the years it now takes. If these space drives are built, it will change the entire approach to space exploration. The problem is, right now, at NASA the international space station and the space station program absorb about 95 percent of the budget, and all that is left over for the new space drive is about a half of 1 percent, which is virtually nothing. And, so, I think the people are way ahead on what we'd all like to see NASA do, and that's to build these space drives, so write your congressperson and tell them to please support the Rocket Boys and Girls down in Huntsville, Alabama.

Moderator: If the Y2K bug wreaks its havoc, what three books would you like to have in your bunker to read by light of your power generator?

Homer H. Hickam Jr.: TREASURE ISLAND, HUCKLEBERRY FINN, and STARSHIP TROOPERS.

Carol from Alabama: Where did you get your education after high school, and what degrees do you have?

Homer H. Hickam Jr.: I went to Virginia Tech, and I got a B.S. in industrial and aerospace engineering. And since then, I have not gotten any official advanced degrees, but I took many many courses offered by NASA over the years, so if you added them up, I'd probably have enough to have an official Ph.D., but I'm waiting for somebody to give me that honorary title.

Chris from Kentucky: I loved the movie "October Sky" (I read the book right afterward and loved it!). Are there any plans to make a movie of BACK TO THE MOON?

Homer H. Hickam Jr.: Yes, we could sign a television miniseries deal today if we wanted to. We're holding out for a major motion picture. There is a great deal of interest in it, but these things take time. So, you can say we're in negotiations with Hollywood now.

Evans from Minneapolis, MN: I hear that with zero gravity, people lose their muscle mass. Do you know anything more about that? Also, I loved OCTOBER SKY!

Homer H. Hickam Jr.: Thank you for that last comment, but yes, it is true that astronauts lose not only muscle mass but also bone calcium. We've already learned that being in a microgravity environment is not good for the human body over the long term, and also we have the problem of radiation. Even the astronauts in low-earth orbit receive quite a bit of radiation, which of course is not good for them either. This is why, again, it's so important that we try to build these big new space drives so that we have enough power for acceleration at least halfway to our destination. This would give us some artificial gravity and also allow for a shorter stay in the vacuum of space and all of its associated radiation problems.

Francis from Youngstown, PA: Do you ever return to Coalwood, West Virginia? How has the town changed since you were a boy?

Homer H. Hickam Jr.: Yes, I was just there two weeks ago. I was there with all the surviving Rocket Boys and their families, and my mother and my brother. Like all successful authors, I decided to buy a sports franchise, so I bought the Coalwood T-ball team, and I was invited to see a game. And when the people in Coalwood heard I might come, they got the governor of West Virginia involved, and Governor Underwood flew down in his helicopter and declared it the first annual West Virginia Rocket Boys day. So, we had a great day, and my T-ball team won. The score was 24-18. Coalwood is much smaller now than it was when I grew up. Only a few hundred people live there, where there were about 2,000 when I grew up. The coal mine is completely gone, and many of the houses are falling down because they are abandoned. And so it makes me sad when I go back to see it the way it is now. But, there are so many tourists now who come to Coalwood that the state is thinking about trying to save the town and make it into a tourist attraction, and also a place where people can come and relax and be in the mountains.

Halley M. from Richmond, VA: Mr. Hickam, OCTOBER SKY was a huge success, in my mind (both from literary and popularity perspectives). Why do you think so many people were able to connect with this book?

Homer H. Hickam Jr.: Well, it's hard for me to dissect it. All I know is that it seems to hit people at an emotional gut level, and there are all kinds of different people who have written me and emailed me to tell me this. So it seems to have a universal attraction. Sons who want to tell me how much it meant to them in terms of their fathers, people who grew up in small towns can relate. Rocket Boys and Girls who built their own rockets when they were kids. So all I can say, really, is that it's a story that seems to have universal appeal. The book has been translated now into eight different languages, and it just continues to grow. And as a matter of fact, I'm starting to feel like Jimmy Buffett. Jimmy Buffett has his Parrotheads, and I have my Rocket Boys and Girls, and they could be of all ages, and now when I go out on a book tour, or make speeches, I have people turning up with T-shirts that say "I am a Rocket Boy, too!" Or, "I am a Rocket Girl, too!" And I just love it!

Jonas from New Jersey: I'd love to hear about your favorite experience while you were in NASA -- you must have seen some amazing things and have some good tales to tell!

Homer H. Hickam Jr.: I think you're correct. I did have some wonderful experiences, and I have quite a few stories that I could tell, but I may have to wait for a few years to let those memories cool down a bit. But I would say that my favorite time working for NASA, and the one where I had so many experiences that I will probably write something about eventually, is my experiences in Japan training their first astronauts.

Moderator: What is your ideal summer vacation?

Homer H. Hickam Jr.: Since I'm a scuba instructor, my favorite summer vacation is to go to virtually any of the islands in the Caribbean and just go diving. Especially if I've got a new wreck to be explored. I love to dive on wrecks. And that love of wreck-diving led to me writing my first book, titled TORPEDO JUNCTION.

Reggie M. from Alabama: Could you tell us about your Distinguished Service Award given to you by the state of Alabama?

Homer H. Hickam Jr.: That was for the attempted rescue of the passengers and crew of a sunken paddleboat in the Tennessee River. I just happened to be on the river that day waterskiing when a sudden storm turned over the paddleboat, and within five minutes of it sinking, I started free-diving on the paddleboat to try to rescue the people aboard, and began bringing the people up one at a time, until another boat came by that had scuba gear aboard it, and I borrowed that scuba gear and dived down and got the rest of the people out. Unfortunately, there were no survivors. We were probably just a minute too late to rescue anyone, but we did the best we could.

Augustine from Houston, TX: How did your experience as a NASA engineer influence this book? Did the novel evolve out of this experience? Do you think you would still be a novelist without this compelling subject to write about?

Homer H. Hickam Jr.: Well, of course, BACK TO THE MOON is based very much on my insider knowledge of NASA, and it would be very difficult for an outsider to write such a novel, but yes, I think I would still be a writer, even if I didn't write about space or related subjects. As a for instance, my first book was a military history about the German U-boats that fought a battle against the Navy and Coast Guard along the Atlantic Coast during WWII.

Moderator: Thank you, Homer H. Hickam Jr.! Best of luck with your new book, BACK TO THE MOON. Before you leave, do you have any parting thoughts for the online audience?

Homer H. Hickam Jr.: Well, I hope that they will read BACK TO THE MOON with a couple of points of view. First, it is meant to be a book of entertainment. I call it, in fact, a beach book -- a book to be enjoyed at the beach, or the pool, or in the mountains. But at the same time, I hope that they will agree with me that it's time we got out of low-earth orbit and went back to the moon.

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Anonymous

Posted August 28, 2004

I presume you mean Hickam

I presume it was Homer HICKAM who won the bronze medal. It should have been gold. This is a great, well-written, even literary space thriller. I love Penny High Eagle!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted April 16, 2001

Action ,romance,and Sic. Fiction

I read rocket boy and found out about this novel i knew he was a good writer but man the way the story line plays out is great with un expected turns the whole time this is a must read.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted August 20, 2000

Once you start reading this book you won't put it down.

An interesting and well written book. Science fiction at its best! I recomend this book to anyone that would enjoy a good thrill!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted June 14, 2000

What a romp...

I picked this up amid several other books I've bought recently and suddenly was awash in an exciting story I could not put down. Hickam creates a rip-roaring action-adventure story that is just a thrill. It's wonderfully crafted. You'll notice that seemingly unimportant elements later become critical. Some of the plot elements that don't seem to make the most sense suddenly are absolutely obvious and perfectly believable. It's really a lot of fun. In addition, if you, like I, dream of a day when space was an adventure, with true danger but great goals, you'll just love this book. It's every space fans dream come true.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted June 1, 2000

great book

excelent, full of action and a bit of sci-fi, loved all the scenes on the moon

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Rick_Chesler

Posted August 30, 2011

more from this reviewer

Realistic shuttle-era space thriller

I was looking for a good space thriller that involved the moon--something realistic and not totally science fiction with now-impossible traveling to other galaxies or planets and such. So seeing that (1) this novel was titled BACK TO THE MOON and (2) was written by real-life former NASA engineer Homer Hickam, Jr. (author of NYT #1 bestseller Rocket Boys), I decided to buy and read it. Overall, I was not disappointed (I'd rate it 3.5 stars if I could). **********SPOILERS AHEAD*************** The good: authoritative and realistic writing on space, space technology, NASA operations and culture. Exciting premise (space shuttle hijacked to go to the moon for valuable minerals). The bad: It's pretty slow-paced for a thriller, with long on-the-ground and administrative development scenes from multiple parties unfolding long before the action ever gets to space (okay, I know, I wanted realism and I got it--that is what it takes to get to space, after all). The love interest between the lead character, Jack Medaris, and Penny "High Eagle" (really, that's what people call her?!) is just plain silly at times, and even more painful is the "love-note--left-on-the-moon" by a former lover in her childhood, which supposedly provides part of Medaris' motivation to hijack the shuttle, putting many people at risk, and to return to the moon. Also irritating was the all-too-convenient post-script "3 years later" wrap-up where all loose ends are bluntly tied up, like the overlay script just before the credits of a movie where they write what became of each character. The ending overall is sort of a gung-ho NASA space enthusiast wet dream, with everything working out for the main characters and plenty of funding going to all the right places for all the right things. That said, there's still a lot to like here. Published over a decade ago in 2000, Hickam predicts the demise of the shuttle program (although not for exactly the right reasons) and the rise of the private space industry. Also, as a diver myself, I enjoyed the minor SCUBA connection present in this novel, especially the ending scene with the moon rocks. * * * If you're looking for more quality space thrillers (there aren't really a whole lot of them are there?),I've also read these 2 (I won't be reviewing them since I read them a long time ago): The Return by Buzz Aldrin with John Barnes Cosmonaut, by Peter McAllister
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Anonymous

Posted May 3, 2003

A Heart Stopping Adventure on the High Frontier

Homer Hickam, best known for his series of books about his West Virginia coal mining home town, has written a great adventure story which will warm the hearts of anyone frustrated about the lack of progress in space exploration. The story begins with the hijacking of the space shuttle Columbia (sadly destroyed recently in real life) and ends with the discovery of a new source of energy on the lunar surface. What happens between will keep the reader up for hours of pure enjoyment.
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Anonymous

Posted April 16, 2000

WOW!!!

I absolutely love this book! I may be only 15 yrs. old, but I know a good book when I read one! Hickam delivers the accuracy and suspense in just the right way! Besides shouldn't romances in space be suspenseful enough! The plot is just addicting, I could not put it down! Homer's descriptive and almost spine tickling drama will put chills down anyone's spine!
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I presume you mean Hickam

Action ,romance,and Sic. Fiction

Once you start reading this book you won't put it down.

What a romp...

great book

Realistic shuttle-era space thriller

A Heart Stopping Adventure on the High Frontier

WOW!!!