Homer “Sonny” Hickam Jr. is a teenager from Coalwood, West Virginia. A large percentage of the town works in the coal mining industry, including his dad. Sonny’s father works long hours and expects that his sons will follow in his footsteps one day. Sonny has bigger dreams, though. After watching the Russian satellite, Sputnik, sail into space, he dreams of building rockets for the US government. Sonny’s father, however, doesn’t share his son’s visions for the future. He thinks Sonny lacks talent and won’t amount to much in life. As a result, he pays more attention to his other son, Jim, who is a gifted athlete.
Sonny’s friends share his passion for rockets, and together they decide to form a fictional missile agency. Coalwood residents are skeptical, and nearly everyone in town believes that their silly agency will fail. The only person that encourages them to follow their dreams is their chemistry teacher, Miss Reily. She assigns them special projects so they can practice designing rockets. The boys pour their hearts and souls into these assignments and start to improve their rocket-building skills. They convince a local blacksmith to help them create metal parts for their rockets. After some failed attempts, they produce a special mechanism that speeds up launch times and makes their rockets fly faster.
Word soon spreads about their invention, and reporters travel to Coalwood to find out more about the boys’ rockets. Hundreds of people gather in a field to witness the boys launch a rocket. Sonny’s father is reluctant to attend, but his wife convinces him to go. The rocket takes a long time to blast off, and many people believe it malfunctioned. However, it eventually blasts off high into the sky. For the first time in Sonny’s life, he sees that his father is proud of him.
