The Right Stuff

The Integral is the name of an “omnipotent spaceship” from the 1921 Russian science fiction novel We by Evgeny Zamyatin (55-56). Wolfe introduces the image of the Integral, “a gigantic, ‘fire-breathing, electric’ rocket,” in Chapter 3 to capture the American public’s perception of the Soviet space program after Sputnik (55). Just as the mighty Integral and its mysterious designer, D-503, plan to roam the universe in search of other planets to subjugate, so too does the anonymous Chief Designer in the Soviet Union represent an immense but shadowy threat to the United States. Each Soviet innovation in space exploration is thus presented by Wolfe as another accomplishment of the foreboding Integral and the army of advanced scientists and technicians working under the unknown Chief Designer. The American public’s awe and anxiety in the face of the grand Soviet space machine is aptly expressed by the image of the Integral and its mission, “all […] in the name of ‘the Benefactor,’ ruler of ‘the One State’” (56).

Wolfe calls “Flying & Drinking and Drinking & Driving” nothing less than a “military tradition” at places like Edwards Air Force Base, the epicenter of test flight following World War II (41). Indeed, the greatest achievement of the most righteous of the pilot fraternity, Chuck Yeager’s first flight to Mach 1 in 1947, occurs despite a drunken horse-riding accident near Pancho’s Fly Inn, the Edwards community’s favorite watering hole (40-44). The flip side of the exceptional dangers of military test flight is thus extreme drinking and driving during off-duty hours. Driving, specifically street racing, is an attractive activity for brash young pilots since it mimics the high-velocity dangers of test flight.

Though such reckless partying could be taken as an extension of the test pilots’ daredevil lifestyle, Wolfe claims that drinking also has a unique social function for the community. Pilots, he says, are only able to communicate with other pilots about their experiences, an activity that typically occurs alongside drinking. While this kind of behavior is of course “the bane of [the] family life” of a pilot, Wolfe frames it as integral to the occupation’s fraternal character (25).

Although not directly critical of the alcohol abuse at places like Edwards, Wolfe does point out that John Glenn attempts to curb these impulses among the Mercury Seven (134-40). Some of the astronauts offer resistance, but Glenn’s more moderate approach eventually wins out.

Wolfe first uses the motif of the pyramid, or ziggurat, to signify the career trajectory of test pilots in Chapter 2. A ziggurat is an ancient Mesopotamian structure that he describes as “a dizzying progression of steps and ledges […] a pyramid extraordinarily high and steep” (18). The test pilot’s dangerous, highly competitive advancement from basic training onward is framed as a series of ruthlessly difficult challenges designed to determine whether an individual has “the right stuff.” Those who fail to measure up may die or simply be “left behind” on the lower levels of the ziggurat (18).

In the opening phases of The Right Stuff, it is clear that Chuck Yeager is at the peak of the pilot ziggurat. The challenge for the Mercury astronauts is that they are perceived by their peers as not living up to the ideal represented by Yeager. An astronaut is not a pilot with “the right stuff,” but a “college-trained chimpanzee” who passively sits in a space capsule (154). A central motif in Wolfe’s book is thus the astronaut’s slow ascent to the height of the pyramid; the Mercury Seven gradually demonstrate that they too have “the right stuff.”