Huntsville author Homer Hickam's father had the Chilean rescue capsule idea 60 years ago (al.com)

[eppur_se_muova]

HUNTSVILLE, AL - NASA engineers are getting credit for the capsule that raised trapped Chilean miners to safety, but best-selling Huntsville author Homer Hickam says, um, excuse me.

My dad had that idea first.

Hickam, whose 1998 best-seller "Rocket Boys: A Memoir," chronicled his boyhood in a tiny West Virginia coal town, posted a photo of his father's invention on his Facebook page.

Homer Hickam Sr. got the idea after an accident trapped men in the mine where he was a foreman.

"Dad's plan was simple," Hickam wrote in his 2002 book "We Are Not Afraid." "Dot the mine with shafts and use steel casings as emergency man-lifts to the surface."



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more: http://blog.al.com/breaking/2010/10/huntsville_author_homer_hickam.html