RIP October Sky/Rocket Boy's Quentin Wilson

From Facebook
Homer Hickam just posted this:



Roy Lee just called to let me know Quentin has passed on to that great launch pad in the sky. Love all the Rocket Boys so much. At least, Mom up in heaven walking her infinite seashore will be happy. She loved Quentin so much and now he's with her

I just saw this - I am genuinely sorry to hear this news. I got to know Quentin a few years ago. He truly loved the hobby, and was working on ways to share some of the history with future rocketeers.

I'll never forget meeting Quentin. I was a judge at the Int'l Science and Engineering Fair. All of us were in buttondown shirts and sport coats at least, except for this old guy beside me, wearing a polo shirt. Figured he didn't know how he was supposed to present himself...

Glanced at him twice before I noticed the "Rocket Boys" emblem on the shirt. Put two and two together and said "Hey, I know you!!"

The surprise was when he looked at my name tag and said "Hey, I know you too!!" Coulda knocked me over with a feather.

Turned out that Pat Gordzelik and he had been doing rocket stuff for a while, and Pat put him on to "Experimental Composite Propellant". Quentin was a chemist and really liked seeing the chemistry of propellants.

We spent our free time that day walking around, talking rockets and chemistry.

I saw him at LDRS 25, I think it was. He was an irascible curmudgeon who didn't bear fools gladly. And he'll be missed.

Mr. Wilson’s funeral arrangements:
https://tinyurl.com/y5a5rn7o