The Right Stuff

Wolfe’s emphasis on the roles of the male astronaut and his wife is evident right from the first chapter of The Right Stuff, which focuses on the separate experiences of Pete and Jane Conrad during a fatal test flight in Florida. This enshrines a clear division between the different functions of men and women, to which Wolfe continuously returns in the book. Only men have “the right stuff,” the mercurial blend of supposedly masculine qualities like bravery and daring that make for a successful test pilot; women, on the other hand, provide “excellent backing on the home front,” that is, the domestic labor and emotional support that sustain the private lives of pilots and astronauts (111).

This gender dynamic plays out in several notable ways in Wolfe’s narrative. For example, the “military tradition of Flying & Drinking and Drinking & Driving” prominent at Edwards and then later at Cape Canaveral often takes place while a pilot is away from his family (41). This becomes a point of contention between the Mercury Seven during the Konaki Séance episode, in which Glenn and Shepard initially disagree about the behavior of the astronauts while off-duty and away from their wives (134-40). The reckless, cowboy ethos of military test flight is at odds with the image of the astronauts, propagated mainly by Glenn, as “seven patriotic God-fearing small-town Protestant family men” (111).

However, Wolfe is clear that the wives of the astronauts have an important role to play in Project Mercury. After all, the wives are separately profiled in one of the first Life magazine issues devoted to the Seven. They are just as much significant public figures as the astronauts themselves. Indeed, Wolfe frequently focuses on the dealings of the women with the press, an important component of each of the six Mercury flights. The wives of the Seven thus make crucial contributions to the image of the astronaut as a paragon of American values. The gender roles in The Right Stuff thus both conform to, and complicate, the stereotype of mid-20th-century family life that the astronauts and their wives are supposed to incarnate.

According to Wolfe, the first encounter between the Mercury Seven and the American media in April 1959 sets the public image of the astronaut. The key figure here is John Glenn, who goes beyond the usually taciturn character of military personnel to present an “amazing picture of the Perfect Pilot wrapped up in a cocoon of Home & Hearth and God & Flag!” (93). The Seven are not merely pilots or selfless public servants; they represent nothing less than “the American dream” in the flesh (115).

The mantle of American hero places a significant burden on the astronauts. Glenn, the media darling, is of course best equipped to deal with these expectations, but some of the other astronauts struggle with the public scrutiny (117-18). On the other hand, the gravitas given to the astronauts and the attention that it entails produce tangible benefits. For example, the Life magazine deal provides each of the astronauts with income that far exceeds their paltry military pay. The adoration of the public is also not without other advantages; Wolfe suggests that it is “good for the soul” of the astronaut (102).

As Wolfe notes, the flawless public image of the Mercury Seven proves expedient for political purposes. Though initially skeptical of NASA, President Kennedy is eager to expand upon the success of the astronauts in order to bolster his own political fortunes in the early stages of his administration. This precipitates his announcement that the United States will land an astronaut on the moon by 1970, an initiative that leads to previously unthinkable funding levels for NASA. Indeed, the space program becomes inextricably linked with the fate of the United States as a nation in its Cold War struggle with the Soviet Union. The success of the astronauts in space is thus tantamount to the success of the nation on the world stage; the Seven become avatars of everything that America stands for.

Wolfe presents the American media as a crucial source of the prestige and shining public image of the first astronauts. Though ostensibly an objective, critical institution, Wolfe argues that the press is strangely united in its positive perception of the Mercury Seven, a view that redounds to the public at large. The media, he claims, is intent on establishing the correct moral and emotional tone for the public understanding of the space program (95). Accordingly, Wolfe frequently compares the press to a Victorian gentleman, that is, a cautious, rather conservative figure devoted to the trappings of propriety over truth (95, 100, 111, 123).

The implication is that the media propagates a kind of unthinking, sentimental “groupthink” about Project Mercury. The first astronauts are “the seven bravest pilots and bravest men in the United States” (95). According to Wolfe, anything that departs from that proposition is simply ignored by the media. This is best exemplified by the Life magazine feature. The astronauts and their wives have final say over whatever is printed about them in Life; accordingly, the image of the Seven and their families as embodiments of the American dream is inviolable (125-26).

This invites an uneasy comparison with the Soviet Union. If the astronauts are supposed to represent democratic American values against the authoritarianism of the Communist regime in Russia, then it is somewhat curious that the public personae of the Seven are sanitized to the point of undermining the independence of the press. While Wolfe does not explicitly articulate this point, the upshot of his reflections on the media is that the astronauts serve as propaganda designed to stimulate feelings of patriotism among the American public. As his account of the aftermath of John Glenn’s flight in Chapter 12 shows, the press is quite successful in carrying out this aim.