The Point

The main point of the movie overall is triumph in the face of disappointment, fear and failure. Which is essentially what America had to learn to overcome during the Cold War and the arms race and space race. We had to learn to get over the fear, and we had to learn to get over disappointment. In the end, no one blew us up, and we got a man on the moon. I realize that no one thought everything was going to go as perfect as it ended up going, but thats a good lesson that the movie demonstrates. Happy endings are sometimes a reality, and when the US reached the moon first, we sort of ended up winning the space race and that was essentially the beginning of the end of our fear. There was quite a lot more to it, but realizing that we still had power to affect our own change was a big factor that dominated, and still to this day dominates our society and our culture as the United States of America. The movie October Sky was the perfect was to show this, as at the very end, Homer figure out his rocket, and launches it in front of his whole town, and him and his father patch up their relationship and he lets his father hit the launch button. Everything worked out in the movie, and everything worked out for America.

the fear caused by the feud between the USSR and the US

In Major Problems in the same chapter as I mentioned before, there is an article called Life Magazine Reassures Americans "We Won't All Be Dead" After Nuclear War, 1959.

It talks about the necessary precautions american's would need to take in order to protect themselves from a nuclear explosion. They said that most people would die, but that not all would surely if they were willing to protect themselves correctly.

No offense, but reading that would not have kept me hopeful! Its rather depressing and all it really does is continue to allude to the fact that everyone was terrified out of their minds.

In October Sky, what everyone was terrified of was a mine collapse, and then it happened and it threw everyone out of whack and left people scrambling about unsure of how to get back on their feet. Homer had to go work in the mine to provide for his family while his father couldn't, and this was a portrayal of both how our world would have been had we been hit with a bomb, on a much smaller scale of course but the confusion and terror was certainly a good reflection of what would have happened. Also, the fear of another mine collapse after the first one was a perfect showing of how the world was acting while living in fear of a bomb being detonated on them every minute of their lives.

Major Problems Third Edition

In the book Major Problems in the chapter about the Cold War and the Nuclear Age, there are two pictures on page 304 that symbolize how important the space race and technological advances were.

They are titled "Images of Nuclear Destruction: Atomic Cake vs. Godzilla, 1946 and 1954"

The first is the atomic cake, which was in celebration of the Bikini Island Bomb tests in 1946. It was one of a few tests the US did with bombs and other technological advances in attempts to keep up with the Soviet Union.

The second picture is of Godzilla, which was a character that produced mass destruction in movies, which was a symbol of the destruction of big bombs like atomic or hydrogen bombs.

Connecting the Movie to the History

Throughout the movie there are a lot of strained relationships between the main characters, especially Homer and his father, and the conflict between the two is stemmed from a competing viewpoint that Homer needs to follow in his fathers footsteps and work in the mines instead of following his own dreams and becoming involved in rocket science. This is a parallel of the tension between the war planners of the United States government and the citizens of the country. When USSR put Sputnik into space, America started doubting their technology and feared for the future if they didn't learn new ways to keep up. Its not an exact fit, but the tensions between the two characters and the tensions between the people and their government is close enough to recognize when watching the movie.  

A look inside HIST

The book HIST by Kevin M. Schultz has a chapter dedicated to the understanding of the Cold War in America. A section of this is titled 'from arms race to space race." He introduces the section talking about the prospect of hydrogen bombs in multiple nations all over the world, and that bomb technology was growing everywhere. When the soviets tested their ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile), which could travel from one continent all the way to another, and then two months after that is when they launched Sputnik I into orbit.

After the launch of Sputnik, a sense of despair broke out across the United States. The satellite scared America into thinking that the Soviet Union was watching every single move the entire nation of America was making. Because of this America was no longer confident in their countries technological superiority which spurned the alarm of America's war planners. Three months later America launched Explorer I into orbit, sufficiently matching the Soviets Sputnik 3.

The Eisenhower administration came up with new science and education initiatives and created NASA (national aeronautics and space administration). The war between the Soviets and America raged on, each trying to best the other, which eventually ended up with America getting a moon landing. Long term benefits of this were huge but short term benefits only added to even more distrust between the two countries during the Cold War.

A website from the town that the story took place in!

http://www.coalwoodwestvirginia.com/sputnik.htm

its a really cool website! Lots of information on Sputnik, which was what inspired Homer so much to go and try to follow his dreams.

The "Space Race" and all that jazz

"The Space Race was a mid-to-late 20th century competition between the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US) for supremacy in space exploration. Between 1957 and 1975, Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused on attaining firsts in space exploration, which were seen as necessary for national security and symbolic of technological and ideological superiority. The Space Race involved pioneering efforts to launch artificial satellites, sub-orbital and orbital human spaceflight around the Earth, and piloted voyages to the Moon. It effectively began with the Soviet launch of the Sputnik 1 artificial satellite on 4 October 1957, and concluded with the co-operative Apollo-Soyuz Test Project human spaceflight mission in July 1975. The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project came to symbolize détente, a partial easing of strained relations between the USSR and the US.

The Space Race had its origins in the missile-based arms race that occurred just after the end of the World War II, when both the Soviet Union and the United States captured advanced German rocket technology and personnel."

thanks wikipedia! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Race