A review by tittypete
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe

5.0

Tom Wolfe could write about lead-poisoning-induced constipation and it would still be utterly fascinating. But here he’s talking about the wild early days of the US space program so the fascinating score is double for Tom. The book starts with test pilots in the California desert who would fly dangerous experimental planes and then get shitfaced at the local bar and then drive home super fast. Flying and drinking and drinking and driving. A bunch of them die. But almost exclusively from the flying part. The bits about landing on an aircraft carrier at night are particularly pants-shitting. The job has something like a 70% survival rate and it’s not even wartime.

So this the group of folks from which the first seven astronauts were picked. Most of them seemed cool except for John Glenn who comes across like a pompous asshole. Guys who are cool pushing the limits of untested prototype aircraft are good candidates for the job of sitting atop a rocket and being launched into space. The fact that all previous unmanned rocket launch attempts had exploded on the pad notwithstanding. It was nuts. These dudes didn’t give a frick.

Anyway they shoot some monkeys up into space first (this is one of the best parts of the book) and then they shoot some dudes up there. Alan Shepard get to go first and has to piss all over himself because there’s no piss tube. But John Glenn sort of gets all the credit because he actually orbits. Gordo Cooper was best of all because he actually piloted his craft a little. Everybody's wife gets pretty stressed out.

This was a good one.