46 pages • 1 hour read
Tom WolfeThe Right Stuff
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1979A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 13-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary: “The Operational Stuff”
Chapter 13 centers on three major events in the life of Project Mercury: the decision to move the space program to the brand-new Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas; Scott Carpenter’s orbital flight on May 24, 1962; and Wally Schirra’s on October 3, 1962.
Wolfe describes the astronauts’ introduction to the city of Houston on July 4, 1962 (283-88). He calls NASA’s decision to open the new Manned Spacecraft Center as “about the biggest thing in Houston history” (285). The Seven and their families are treated to a parade and a somewhat strange reception at the Houston Coliseum that includes a strip show. This episode is followed by a discussion of the astronauts’ financial situation, which is under increased scrutiny from the government (288-92). John Glenn manages to personally persuade President Kennedy that the lucrative Life magazine deal does not unfairly privilege the Seven over other military personnel because of the intense publicity surrounding the astronauts (292).
The Carpenter and Schirra flights are presented as contrasting visions of what Project Mercury’s goals should be. Carpenter replaces Deke Slayton for the second orbital flight (after Glenn) due to a slight abnormality in Slayton’s heart that was first observed in August 1959 (292). Slayton is incensed and takes the decision as an improper encroachment of medical concerns upon the operational standards of actual flight, the right stuff itself (294). Carpenter is chosen since he served as the backup pilot for Glenn’s flight.
In contrast to Glenn, Carpenter is given an extended checklist of experiments and observations to perform while orbiting the Earth (295-97). This seems to distract Carpenter from monitoring his fuel levels, and he is just able to properly angle the capsule for reentry into Earth’s atmosphere, splashing down 250 miles away from the target landing site in the Atlantic (300). While Carpenter remains poised throughout the process, his erratic descent back to Earth briefly leads NASA to fear that he and the capsule have burned up in the atmosphere. Chris Kraft, flight director at NASA, is furious (301).
In the aftermath of his flight, Carpenter is designated as a “washout” who has underperformed for Project Mercury (303). Slayton, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Al Shepard, and Gordon Cooper all unite behind the notion that future flights should be strictly operational, that is, limited to flying and avoiding scientific experiments as much as possible: “Carpenter had taken all this Mad Professor stuff seriously, and that was what led to his problems. […] All this science nonsense could wait” (304).
The next orbital journey, taken by Wally Schirra, accordingly focuses heavily on operational flight precision, or “conserving fuel and landing on target” (306). Carpenter takes this as a rebuke of his and Glenn’s work as astronauts (310). Schirra successfully executes “a textbook flight” and, along with Slayton, Grissom, Shepard, and Cooper, seems to permanently alter the mandate of Project Mercury to follow the precedent of military test flight embodied by Yeager.
Chapter 14 Summary: “The Club”
Chapter 14 begins by pivoting back to Pete Conrad, last encountered in Wolfe’s description of the astronaut selection process in Chapter 4. Conrad is one of nine astronauts in Group II, along with Neil Armstrong, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, James McDivitt, Eliot See, Tom Stafford, Ed White, and John Young. Project Mercury is winding down as NASA prepares to focus on President Kennedy’s mission to land an American on the moon with the Gemini and Apollo programs.
The opening scene with Conrad encapsulates the awkward relationship between the nine new astronauts and the original Mercury Seven. Assigned to travel with John Glenn, Conrad resolves to carry Glenn’s bags upon arrival at any airport so that Glenn can sign autographs for adoring fans (312-17). According to Wolfe, Conrad appears in these situations as “an unknown young man, the single-combat hero’s valet” (313). “Next to John Kennedy himself,” as Wolfe puts it, “John Glenn was probably the best-known and most admired American in the world” (322). The gap in prestige between the two sets of astronauts is even felt by their wives, who struggle to form a single cohesive group once everyone settles in Houston (318-21).
Wolfe then moves to the final Mercury flight, taken by Gordon Cooper on May 15, 1963. Gordon attempts the longest American spaceflight yet: 34 hours and 22 orbits of the planet (322). The aim is to demonstrate that NASA has kept pace with the accomplishments of the Soviet program before embarking on Gemini and Apollo.
After cutting away to an amusing account of the media ritual that surrounds Trudy Cooper, Gordon Cooper’s wife, Wolfe returns to Gordon in orbit (324-28). Despite some technical complications that disable the automatic controls, Cooper successfully lands the capsule (328-30). His sojourn into space—the longest and riskiest yet for an American—places Cooper second only to Glenn in “the role of single-combat warrior” sanctified by the public (330).
Chapter 15 Summary: “The High Desert”
Chapter 15 circles back to Chuck Yeager, now head of the Aerospace Research Pilot School (ARPS) at George Air Force Base (332). Nearby Edwards Air Force Base has been completed transformed since Yeager’s glory days in the 1950s; it is a new era of piloting defined by the role of the astronaut within NASA (331-32). “The glamour of the space program was such that there was no longer any arguing against,” writes Wolfe, “[i]t practically glowed in the sky” (333).
Though it relies heavily on the military for its astronaut recruits, NASA has always been a civilian program. ARPS represents the best effort of the Air Force to wrest spaceflight back into the hands of the military. Yeager presides over exciting endeavors like the X-20 and the Manned Orbiting Laboratory space station. Until these projects are operational, Yeager’s focus is on getting his pilots into NASA; four of the nine astronauts in Group II are from the Air Force (332-33).
Wolfe closes the chapter with yet another exciting account of a test flight. Yeager decides to test out a new aircraft, the NF-104, in an attempt to break one more record: the altitude of 113,890 feet set by the Soviets in 1961 (340-41). After one successful preliminary flight, Yeager runs into trouble. He is unable to level the nose of the NF-104 on his descent from 104,000 feet (342-43). Following a long spin toward the earth, Yeager ejects from the plane. The ejector seat, falling above him, releases a steady stream of jet fuel that partially ignites Yeager as he descends in his parachute (344-47). He is barely able to break his helmet visor to prevent suffocating from the smoke produced by the flames and lands safely. Though badly burned, he suffers no permanent injuries. “Chosen or damned!,” as Wolfe sums it up, “[i]t blows at any seam!” (344). Yeager will never again attempt to break a record above the Mojave Desert.
On the day of Yeager’s flight, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara announces the cancellation of the X-20 project (348). Spaceflight will not be a military matter; it will remain strictly with NASA.
Epilogue Summary
Wolfe offers some observations about flight and the space program in this brief epilogue. He mentions further flight records broken by Bob White and Joe Walker in the X-15, as well as the Iven C. Kincheloe Award given to the Mercury Seven by the military test pilot community (350-51).
Kincheloe had made the first ever flight above 100,000 feet in the X-2 in 1956. He died two years later in a crash in the F-104A at Edwards. According to Wolfe, the award represents the fact that the astronauts “had fought for a true pilot’s role in Project Mercury […] [and] had shown that they could handle it in the classic way, out on the edge” (351).
In conclusion, Wolfe argues that the astronaut’s important role in American public life waned with the de-escalation of the Cold War in the summer of 1963 (351-52). “Never again would an astronaut be perceived as a protector of the people,” he writes, “risking his life to do battle in the heavens. Not even the first American to walk on the moon would ever know the outpouring of a people’s most primal emotions that Shepard, Cooper, and, above all, Glenn had known” (352). He suggests that of the Seven, only Glenn remains a household name in the United States.
Chapter 13-Epilogue Analysis
Chapters 13 and 14 cover the final three Mercury missions before the termination of the program in 1963. They are completed by Scott Carpenter (May 24, 1962), Wally Schirra (October 3, 1962), and Gordon Cooper (May 15, 1963). This brings the total number of Mercury flights to six. The seventh astronaut, Deke Slayton, is removed from flight status due to a minor heart condition (292-95). Chapter 15 then returns the reader to Chuck Yeager for his final brush with death in the air, while Wolfe’s short epilogue offers some concluding reflections on the American space program.
Wolfe’s account of the second set of Mercury flights focuses on the contrast between two possible paths for the future of the American space program. This recapitulates a constant theme of The Right Stuff: whether astronauts are hotshot daredevil pilots like Yeager or passive test subjects little better than the trained chimpanzees who preceded the Seven in the Mercury capsule.
On the one hand is the image of the astronaut embodied (inaccurately, Wolfe suggests) by Scott Carpenter. Carpenter gladly devotes most of his orbit around the Earth to conducting experiments and observations at the behest of NASA scientists (295-96). The other astronauts (with the exception of Glenn) argue this focus on a checklist of duties assigned by non-pilots caused Carpenter’s messy and dangerous return to Earth.
The subsequent flights of Schirra and Cooper are therefore focused less on gathering scientific data than demonstrating the operational precision of the astronauts as pilots. This cements the acceptance of astronauts by the community of military test pilots at places like Edwards. The debate is over; the torch has been passed from Yeager to a new generation for whom astronauts top of the pyramid of best pilots in America (337-38). As Chapter 15 shows, even Yeager acknowledges this.
For the most part, Wolfe does not discuss the next phase of the NASA program, projects Gemini and Apollo, in much detail. These later endeavors culminate with Neil Armstrong’s trip to the moon in July 1969. The Epilogue suggests that this event is of far less cultural significance than the course of Project Mercury. He cites lessening Cold War tensions as the primary reason for this change in public perception of the astronaut. “The single-combat warriors’ war had been removed,” he writes (352). But even the names of the Seven, he claims, have largely faded from public memory (excluding, of course, John Glenn) (352). This ties together another major theme of the book: the intense but fickle emotions of the American public refracted through politicians and the media.
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