Donnie darko roger ebert biography

Like the hero of “October Sky,” I remember the shock that ran through America when the Russians launched Sputnik on Oct. 5, 1957. Like the residents of Coalwood, W.Va. in the movie, I joined the neighbors out on the lawn, peering into the sky with binoculars at a speck of moving light that was fairly easy to see.

Unlike Homer Hickam, the hero of “October Sky,” I didn’t go on to become a NASA scientist, or train astronauts.

Donnie darko roger ebert biography

But I did read Willy Ley’s Rockets, Missiles and Space Travel three or four times, and Arthur Clarke’s The Making of a Moon. I got their autographs, too, just as Homer sends away for a signed photo of Werner von Braun.

That first shabby piece of orbiting hardware now seems like a toy compared to the space station, the shuttle, and the missions to the moon and beyond.

But it had an impact that’s hard to describe to anyone who takes satellite TV for granted. For the first time in history, man had built something that