Name This Movie ?

johndoe99

I need help in finding the name of this movie, i saw some of Apollo 13 the other night and it triggered a memory of this movie:

It's based on a True Story.

It's set in a Coal Mining Town in America, where each generation of the family is expected to work in the mine (think its the late 40's). One son goes to see a docu-movie about V2 Rockets and decides he'd like to build small scale rockets. Using the facilities at the mine (which he's not
allowed to do), he builds a rocket using gunpowder, which fail, he eventually succeeds, but his father being a hardass wont accept it and pushes him into a life in the mine.

He decides to enter a competition of scientific experiments to win a scholarship, and wins. He eventually goes on to become the chief designer of the Apollo rockets at NASA and in his late fifties contribute to the design of the Space Shuttle.

Hope someone knows the name of the movie, i cannot remember the actors, at one stage i thought Chris Cooper played the father, but I browsed all his movies on IMDB and none came up.

Thanks.

tommyboy2222

October Sky ??

krudler

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0132477/

Its October Sky, Chris Cooper is in that

johndoe99

thats it, thanks.