What I think Homer wants is his father’s approval for what he does. Also that he doesn’t want to be a miner and that he can’t play football. His friends aren’t supportive at first but later join his crusade to get out of their small town of Coalwood.
One obstacle that is in Homer’s way of reaching his dream is his dad. Homer’s dad wants him to work in the mine like he does, but Homer doesn’t want to be a miner, he wants to follow his dreams and become an engineer at Cape Canaveral. All Homer wants to do is build a rocket and win a scholarship to get away from Coalwood and go to college.
Another obstacle he has to overcome is when his father gets, hurt at an explosion in the mine, and Homer’s brother Jim says he’ll work in the mine to support the family, but Homer says, "No, I’ll work in the mine. If you drop out of school, you’ll lose you’re scholarship." So Homer drops out and works in the mine, and now he can’t enter the science fair since he’s not in school. He works in the mine and still wants to go to college.
Also when the rocket boys are accused of one of their rockets starting a forest fire, they are not allowed to shoot them off anymore. O
ne night while lying awake in bed awaiting the next day at work, Homer pulls out his rocket book. After countless hour of working on the equation, he figures part of it out. But, he needs help on the trigonometry, so he finds Quentin’s house and asks him for help. After Quentin figured out the equation, hey set off to find their rocket the next day. After searching for hours, they thought it was hopeless and stopped at the creek for a drink. After thinking for a while, Homer remembered that he didn’t factor in the wind, and they found their rocket. He overcame the obstacle of being guilty and not able to launch a rocket.And the last obstacle is when he’s at the science fair and his rocket and all his other stuff on his display is stolen. He calls home and asks for them to send another nozzle. There is a problem though, the mine is on strike. Homer’s mom tells his dad to end the strike or she’ll leave him, so he does, and one of the workers makes a new nozzle and sends it to Homer. In the end he and the rocket boys win the science fair and get scholarships.
In conclusion, I feel that Homer fulfills his so-called "destiny" and the rocket boys and Homer get to go to college. The whole time all he wanted to do was build a rocket and get out of Coalwood. Which is basically what every teenager who lives here also wants, to leave this town.