The Citrus College Board of Trustees voted to allow the Rocket Owls to travel to Huntsville, Alabama for the NASA student launch competition.
The item was added to the Board of Trustees agenda after their initial decision to prevent the Rocket Owls from competing in the final launch on the grounds of AB1887 was met with criticism.
The Rocket Owl team members had appealed to the Board of Trustees Jan. 16, but said they thought their chances of being able to go to Alabama were gone.
Still they persisted on their project. They conducted test launches and wrote their reports. They received feedback from NASA scientists while thinking they would miss out on meeting the professionals in person and seeing other school’s rocketry groups, as well as being present at the launch and award ceremony in Huntsville.
Homer Hickam, author of the book the movie “October Sky” was based on, and previous NASA engineer, tweeted his disapproval of the Board of Trustee’s decision and urged them to allow the Rocket Owls to attend.
“I decided to just raise a little hell and hopefully I got their attention,” Hickam said.
Hickam lives in Huntsville, Alabama and has gone to the NASA student launch program a few times in the last five years to meet students.
“They are celebrities by the way, this is so elevated in the consciousness of people in Huntsville its like my gosh, who knows what’s gonna happen when they arrive at the airport.” Hickam said.
“It’s good to be outraged every once in a while, especially for a good cause.” Hickam said.
Philippe Schicker, a member of the Rocket Owls said the day before the board of Trustees meeting that he would bet on the board approving their travel.
“It is incredible exciting,” Schicker said after the board released their decision, “it was really unexpected that it was put on the agenda very last minute and that kind of gave us hope that if it’s put on the agenda we didn’t see a reason to see it voted down.”
Schickler said the Rocket Owls have a lot of work to do before the student launch, including building their payload, but they will be ready.
