From that vantage point Coalwood, Virginia was about as far away as a Saturn V space shot. But it was home.

One starry starry night back in Coalwood at age 14, Homer spotted it. He would never be the same.

Coalwood was an old mining town. Generations of miners worked the coal deep below the Virginia landscape in dangerous tunnels and dark and dank and dusty shafts, barely lit spaces where machines groaned and sweaty faces grimaced and muscled men under hard hats wielded heavy tools to pull out a day's worth of black coal for one colossal purpose: to fuel heavy industry headlong into one more day of immense production.

Back in 1957, all Homer's pals simply assumed that the coal mine was a life-long destiny. Everybody understood that for any aspiring hometown youngster with big ambitions, the single path out of Coalwood was a football scholarship. Only one problem.

Homer, unlike his older brother, just didn't take to football.

Then he saw it - streaking across the velvet back night sky like a magic bullet. A star in motion. All the million other familiar points of light remained stationary. Constellations held their places. Stellar objects all stayed locked in position. But not this one. This "star" drew a perfectly straight line across the heavens. It was a wonder. And it changed Homer's life.

Half way around the world on October 4, 1957 Iskustvennyi Sputnik Zemli (translation "fellow world traveler of the earth") rose thunderously off the launch pad in a cloud of fiery smoke from somewhere in the heart of the Soviet Union. It would be the first man-made object ever to orbit the planet - once every ninety-eight minutes. The one hundred eighty four pound polished globe was barely the larger than a basketball. And yet it could be seen after dark with the naked eye from just about anywhere on planet Earth.

The world watched. Spellbound. Heads turned skyward in a wide-eyed state of pure astonishment.

This one moment of inspiration opened the door to a whole new world of ideas for young Homer Hickum.

Ever had one of those? A moment's inspiration? When your own personal Sputnik flew by and you were never the same again?

Young Homer had to know. How did that thing get up there? He was driven to experiment. Suddenly, physics and calculus and chemistry made sense. His appetite for knowledge could not be satisfied. He recruited a rag-tag crew of greenhorn friends. Together they built a crude launch pad just outside of Coalwood. They devoured every book, every article, every thing they could find about the famed American rocket scientist Dr. Werner Von Braun. With the help of a reluctant welder and a sympathetic teacher, against all odds - they figured it out - and made their rocket soar.

Coalwood found there was another path to college scholarship - rocket science.

Sputnik circled the globe in 1957. A staggeringly brief twelve years later, July 16, 1969 Apollo 11 took Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr. for the ride of their lives. On July 20, the Eagle landed - just at the edge of the Sea of Tranquility - on the Moon. "That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind."

Eyes fixed on a black and white TV set, Homer Hickum, Jr. of Coalwood, Virginia cheered.

When he retired from NASA, Homer wrote a moving biography. It's called "The Rocket Boys." His true story just last year became a major motion picture - "October Sky."

A couple weeks ago, Carolyn and I toured the National Air and Space Museum (Smithsonian Institute) in Washington, DC.  We saw the satellite Sputnik suspended from the ceiling in the main lobby.  For such a giant historic treasure, it seemed surprisingly small.  We thought about Dr. Hickum.

Can you remember your Sputnik moment? Just when it seemed life was taking you for a monotonous ride down a dead-end street… and the light came on. And you could see again. You were energized. Focused. Eager. Alive.

Hold that thought. Savor it for a minute or two. Recover something of its meaning in your life.

It mattered then. It still matters - today.