SOLVED. YA scifi: space school, flying game, astrophysics? [s]

[martha]

Trying to remember the name of a kids' or YA book set on a space station school: the main character wins a scholarship after his dad dies. It involved a game where you strapped wings on your arms and flew around in a zero gravity area. (No, I'm not confusing it with Ender's Game.) There was a difficult class in astrophysics/flying in space. Ring a bell?

Other elements:
- a space elevator
- a grizzled old battle instructor with an Arkansas toothpick (knife)
- a kid who'd lived in space his whole life and had a pet robot
- a kid who gets expelled because he forgets to wipe certain files from his computer before syncing with the teacher's

It would have been published before 1997 or so.

Thank you so much! This is driving me nuts. Both my brother and I remember reading it but neither of us can track it down.

[Brittany]

It seems like I recall a bunch of those things being in the stories of The Complete Robot ... Could it have been this story collection?

[Mir]

Have you tried looking at this list?

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/5...

[martha]

Fantastic resource, thanks, Miriam! Alas, they didn't have mine, but I'll keep an eye on it in case it gets updated...

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Martha, are you still looking for this book?

[Justanotherbiblophile]

There are a lot of books that have 'the flying game' - ie: 'human-powered wings in (pressurized) zero-gravity' environments. Usually in environments that are spun for gravity, so you fly in areas above that, and have tricky gradients.

[martha]

Update to say: I FOUND IT! Star Voyager Academy by William Forstchen.



Thanks for all your help!

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Yay, a search from 2011 solved!