Pilots In Tom Wolfe's The Right

As trivial as it may seem, at one time in order to prove America had stelar science and technology we had to rush to get men into space. In Tom Wolfe’s The right stuff a group of military test pilots are given the opportunity to be part of the space race against the soviets. Each one of these pilots had their qualms about joining the program due to the fact that many of them wanted to become career pilots. For instance, in order to become a good pilot one would have to log a lot of flight hours, and joining the space program would prevent them from flying for a prolonged period of time. Seven of the pilots given the opportunity are chosen, and they eventually become remarked as renowned heroes. Their success causes the space program to take off and expand. Due to this, military pilots who looked down on the seven now are interested in

The rocket was pre-programmed to complete the mission into space, and the path of it could only be slightly altered upon landing. The astronauts wanted to feel more like pilots after being ridiculed so heavily by their peers for being passengers in a “tin can”. Tom Wolfe writes, “ The astronaut would have little to do in a Mercury flight except stand and strain, and the engineers ha devised what psychologists referred to as ‘a graded series of exposures’ to take care of that.” This quote shows exactly how the astronauts are viewed by those from the inside. The engineers of the NASA program saw them as test subjects. The pilots practically did nothing on a flight. Their willingness to continue with the program even after they were told they would not be able to pilot the ship shows they didn't posses the right stuff. A pilot capable of having the right stuff would never give up valuable flight time to do nothing. Therefore, the astronauts who were recruited to be on the space mission couldn’t say that they possessed the right