Culture

How Huntsville Breeds Rocket Scientists

Rocket scientist Tim Pickens on his city's culture of scientific discovery.
Reuters

Tim Pickens is the kind of guy that gives Huntsville its nickname: Rocket City.

The name was there before he was, derived from the city’s high concentration of NASA and military space projects. But Pickens’ decades of involvement in the city’s space industry and engineering community embodies the relationship between the city and the rockets that helped put people on the moon.