Liftoff of Mercury-Atlas 6, carrying the spacecraft Friendship 7 and astronaut John Glenn on the third space flight of NASA, America’s first crewed orbital flight, february 20, 1962. No, the idea here (in the all-enclosing fraternity) seemed to be that a man should have the ability to go up in a hurtling piece of machinery and put his hide on the line and then have the moxie, the reflexes, the experience, the coolness, to pull it back in the last yawning moment-and then to go up again the next day, and the next day, and every next day, even if the series should prove infinite-and, ultimately, in its best expression, do so in a cause that means something to thousands, to a people, a nation, to humanity, to God. The idea seemed to be that any fool could do that, if that was all that was required, just as any fool could throw away his life in the process. But it was not bravery in the simple sense of being willing to risk your life. In Wolfe's words, the book is about something the astronauts and pilots would never address or discuss directly, even amongst themselves: 'courage.' Wolfe became fascinated with that righteous stuff coursing through the veins of young fighter jocks, the thing that incites a person to 'hang your hide out over the edge with a little class.' As to just what this ineffable quality was… well, it obviously involved bravery. Play icon The triangle icon that indicates to play But The Right Stuff is about much more than aerospace history.

Names like Chuck Yeager, Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, and John Glenn will be immediately familiar to any spaceflight and aviation enthusiast. On the surface, 1979's The Right Stuff is about the first American astronauts, men hand-selected from a pool of military fighter jet pilots to race against the Soviets and conquer the heavens.

But around here, one book stands out among the rest: The Right Stuff. One of the fathers of New Journalism, a literary style that embraces a subjective perspective and lofty prose, Wolfe penned dozens of books during his lifetime, including an as-if-firsthand account of Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters in The Electric Kool-Aide Acid Test and the fictional social satire of 1980s New York City in The Bonfire of the Vanities. Tom Wolfe, the renowned journalist and author who famously employed literary techniques, excitable punctuation, and razor-sharp wit in his nonfiction work, passed away Monday at age 88.

The right stuff by tom wolfe