Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff"...

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Tom Wolfe's book, "The Right Stuff" was published 40 years ago in 1979. It chronicled America's fledgling space program and its first astronauts, the men of the Mercury Program (https://www.amazon.com/…/…/d/0312427565/ref=tmm_pap_title_0…).

The book was made into a 192 minute feature film in 1983. It's a largely faithful rendition of the book with an excellent cast, including Levon Helm (of The Band), as Yeager's buddy "Ridley," who did some of the occasional narration throughout the film.

The book and film initially focus on the early test pilots who were America's first to challenge the sound barrier, then chased each other for altitude records.

Legendary test pilot, Chuck Yeager was considered by most to be the very best.

NONE of them were considered for the space program being seen as too independent and demanding.

They'd come to have the same issues with the pilots used in the Mercury program.

It was those seven men who'd become household names in that generation; Alan Shepard, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Leroy Gordon "Gordo" Cooper, Wally Schira and Donald "Deke" Slayton.

Alan Shepard, a Naval Aviator before entering the Mercury Program, was the first American into space in May of 1961.

In the film, actor Scott Glenn who played Alan Shepard was greeted by two large Texans, when the space program moved to Houston, who asked, "Which one are you?"

Shepard responded, "Alan Shepard," to which they replied, "Which one's John Glenn?" Glenn had recently become the first man to orbit the earth. Shepard pointed Glenn out and the two Texans said, "That's the one we want to meet," and ambled away.

In the book and film, Shepard then turned to his wife and said, "I'm going to the moon. That's it, I'm definitely going to the moon."

If true, Shepard's words were prophetic. He would walk on the moon 10 years after becoming the first man into space and the only Mercury astronaut to walk on the moon, as a member of Apollo 14.
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