Loved the movie, especially the clips at the end

Except they got the post-story info about Homer Hickam, Sr. wrong, and, since a couple of the real life Rocket Boys were combined into the O'Dell character (plus at least one more was excluded altogether), their true fate is excluded from that montage.

Go to the following page and check out the links in the right sidebar under "Meet the Rocket Boys and the real people in the Coalwood books.":
http://homerhickam.com/coalwood/

I'm hazy on the exact particulars, but from what I recall, this is what happened to Homer, Sr and Elsie . and the mine, as well as a little history on Sonny (Homer, Jr.):
* The mine was sold by the steel company who ran the Olga Coal Company in 1965 to another coal company. All the homes, stores, etc. were put up for sale to private ownership (the miners already living in their homes who continued to work for the new company had the priority to buy the home they were in first). Just prior to this time the railroad spur from the tipple to the main railroad was torn-up as they started hauling the trailing production of coal out at a neighboring mine that Olga also owned (both mines were connected during the 1957-1960 timeline of "The Rocket Boys" book). The tipple remained but it basically was used only as a lift to transport miners and equipment into and out of the mines. Oh yeah, that other mine was sold by Olga to the same company that bough the Coalwood mine.
* Homer, Sr. retired from the full-time superintendent in 1976, but he continued to work part-time doing consulting work as an independent contractor.
* Homer, Sr. retired completely in 1982 and moved to Myrtle Beach to be with Elsie Hickam again. She moved there on her own when Sonny (Homer, Jr.) left to go to VPI (Va Tech) in the Fall of 1960. Although they remained married until Homer, Sr.'s death, they lived apart prior to his retirement, except when Homer, Sr. visited her on the rare vacations he took.
* The Coalwood mine shut down for good in 1985 (or 1986?). The shaft was filled-in, the tipple was torn down, along with all the other remaining buildings specific to the mine's functioning.
* Homer Hickam, Sr. died in 1989 of complications due to black lung disease in Myrtle Beach. At this time Sonny was already working at NASA Marshall SFC in Huntsville AL, training Space Shuttle astronauts in the Neutral Buoyancy Tank (he never became a rocket scientist; after college he served in Vietnam, and after his finishing his tours he became interested in SCUBA diving before leaving the Army), and Homer, Sr. was proud of his new chosen profession (he was also proud about his son serving his country.
* Sonny (Homer, Jr.) retired from NASA in the mid 1990s (1996?) to pursue writing full-time. He was already a freelance writer, authoring articles for SCUBA magazines, and a certain article for Smithsonian's Air & Space magazine that became the basis for "The Rocket Boys". He also previously wrote a naval history book about the USCG's hunt for U-boats of the US Atlantic Coast during WWII: http://www.homerhickam.com/books/tj.shtml (As a SCUBA enthusiast, he had involvement in searching for wrecks which led to writing the book.)
* Elsie Hickam died at 97 in Myrtle Beach in 2009. And yes, she did visit the set during the making of "October Sky": http://homerhickam.com/newsletters/making_os.shtml

PS: If you didn't already know, Homer Hickam, Sr. was always known as "Homer". Homer Hickam, Jr. was always known as "Sonny" while growing up in Coalwood. I guess once he left Coalwood he became known as "Homer" to all he met outside of Coalwood afterwards, especially after his father passed-away. In order to avoid confusion, the movie makers just decided to name his father "John", and call Homer, Jr. by just "Homer" instead of "Sonny".

The info in the clips was all wrong! For example, it says Homer's dad died in 1976 but he actually died in 1989! I have no idea why the info was wrong when it could have easily been corrected before the film's release!