The Right Stuff

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The Right Stuff
original movie poster
Directed by	Philip Kaufman
Produced by	Irwin Winkler
Written by	Philip Kaufman Tom Wolfe (book)
Starring	Dennis Quaid Ed Harris Scott Glenn Sam Shepard Fred Ward Barbara Hershey Lance Henriksen Veronica Cartwright Jane Dornacker
Distributed by	Warner Brothers
Release date(s)	21 October 1983 (premiere)
Running time	193 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

The Right Stuff is both a 1979 book (ISBN 0374250332) by Tom Wolfe, and a 1983 film adapted from the book. They both recount the story of the first seven astronauts selected for the NASA space program, based on interviews and research by Wolfe. The story tells not only of the "Mercury Seven" and their families, but also the contrasting fate of Chuck Yeager, who was considered by many test pilots to be the best of them all, but who was never selected as an astronaut. NASA officials decided to use college-degreed, military pilots for the Mercury program and not pilots such as Yeager who did not have a college degree and gained their commissions as enlisted men (USAAF Flying Sergeants Program) in World War II.

According to its introduction, the book was inspired by the desire to find out why the astronauts willingly put themselves at risk to fly into space. Wolfe recounts the enormous risks that test pilots were already taking, and their belief that the selectivity of reaching the ranks of a test pilot (and thus possessing "the right stuff") gave. Wolfe likens the astronauts to 'single combat champions' from an earlier era, receiving the honor and adoration of their people before going forth to fight on their behalf.

The story is more about the space race than space exploration in general. The Soviet Union's early space efforts are mentioned only as background, focusing entirely on an early portion of the U.S. space program. Only Project Mercury, the first operational manned space-flight program, is covered. Emphasis is given to the personal stories of the astronauts and their wives rather than the technical aspects of space travel and the flights themselves. The storyline also involves the political reasons for putting people into space, asserting that the Mercury astronauts were actually a burden to the program and were only sent up for promotional reasons. Reasons for including living beings in spacecraft are barely touched upon, but the first option considered was to use a chimpanzee (and, indeed, chimpanzees were sent up first). Another option considered were athletes already accustomed to physical stress, such as circus trapeze artists. Wolfe states that President Eisenhower, however, insisted on pilots, even though the first crewmen would not actually fly the spacecraft. When Gus Grissom lands at sea and exits his space capsule, saving the capsule seems more important to the recovery team than saving the pilot because of the value of the data. Another political issue (mentioned in the film, not in the book) concerned the appropriateness of Grissom's names for publicity purposes. Neither his nickname, "Gus", nor his real first name, Virgil, were considered good names for an astronaut; but his second name was Ivan and that was even less appropriate, as it was a common Russian name.

An interesting aspect of the story is that both sides of the space race (US and USSR) used experienced German engineers and rocket scientists. In a particularly humorous moment in the film version, Senator Lyndon Johnson attends a meeting where the politicians are reacting to the news of Sputnik's 1957 launch. Senator Johnson asks "Is it their [the Soviets] German scientists that got them up there first?". At that moment, the "German scientist" (a composite character, heavily patterned on Wernher von Braun) responds: "No Senator...our Germans are better than their Germans." This may have been based upon the fact that, as a result of Operation Paperclip, most of the German managers and engineers went to the United States, while the Soviet Union gained many manufacturing workers.

Although a fictional moment, it captures an overall truth. The early U.S. rockets such as the Redstone, which carried Alan Shepard into space, were in fact only slight updates of the German V-2 rockets from the Second World War. The design program was led by Wernher von Braun, Nazi Germany's chief rocket scientist, who had surrendered to U.S. forces in Germany (and had avoided surrendering to Soviet forces). By this time, he was working for the United States.

The later Atlas rockets, such as the one used to put John Glenn into orbit, were of American design. John Glenn almost did not get to fly the third mission because his wife Annie refused to meet with Vice President Lyndon Johnson.

Another test pilot highlighted in the movie is the late Scott Crossfield. Crossfield and Yeager were fierce but friendly rivals for speed and altitude records.

Chuck Yeager spent time with Tom Wolfe explaining accident reports "that Wolfe kept getting all wrong". Publishing insiders say these sessions between Wolfe and Yeager led Wolfe to highlight Yeager's character, presence, thoughts, and anecdotes throughout the book. As an example, Yeager prides his speech to the Society of Test Pilots that the first rider in the Mercury development program would be a monkey, not a real test pilot, and Wolfe plays this drama out on the level of angst felt by the Mercury Astronauts over those remarks. Yeager himself downplayed the theory of "the right stuff", attributing his survival of potential catastrophes to simply knowing his airplane thoroughly, along with having some good luck.

[edit] The movie

The movie is 3 hours and 13 minutes long and stars Sam Shepard, Scott Glenn, Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid, Fred Ward, Barbara Hershey, Kim Stanley, Levon Helm, Veronica Cartwright, Pamela Reed, Lance Henriksen, and the real Chuck Yeager in a cameo appearance. It features a score by composer Bill Conti.

The screenplay was adapted by Philip Kaufman from the book, with contributions from screenwriter William Goldman. It was directed by Kaufman. Critics were generally positive, although some complained that the non-astronaut character portrayals were sometimes cartoonlike.

It won Academy Awards for Sound Effects Editing; Best Film Editing; Best Music, Original Score and Best Sound. It was nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Sam Shepard), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Cinematography and Best Picture.

When the movie came out, former astronaut and Senator John Glenn (D-Ohio) was running for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. It was felt that the movie might help his chances, but in fact, his candidacy did not go far.

While the movie took liberties with certain historical facts as part of "dramatic license", criticism focused on one: the portrayal of Gus Grissom panicking when his Liberty Bell 7 spacecraft sank following splashdown. Most historians, as well as engineers working for or with NASA and many of the related contractor agencies within the Aerospace industry, are now convinced that the premature detonation of the spacecraft hatch's explosive bolts was caused by failure not associated with direct human error or deliberate detonation at the hands of Grissom. This determination had, in fact, been made long before the movie was filmed, and even Tom Wolfe's book only states that this possibility was considered, not that it was actually judged as being the cause of the accident. However, the book makes clear that, at the time, Grissom was thought to have erred, and this is what is portrayed in the film. Grissom was given only token appreciation by NASA, as compared with the acclaim for Shepherd and Glenn. NASA's long-term confidence in Grissom was demonstrated by his close involvement with the Gemini and early Apollo programs, which are beyond the scope of the film. Ironically, Grissom died in the Apollo 1 fire because there was no quick-opening hatch on the Block 1 Apollo Command Module, There was no hatch because NASA had determined that the explosive hatch used on Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 had most likely self-initiated.

Another fact that had been altered in the movie was the statement by Trudy Cooper, who commented that she "wondered how they would've felt if every time their husband went in to make a deal, there was a one-in-four chance he wouldn't come out of that meeting." According to the book (page 22), this actually reflected the 23% chance of dying during a 20-year career as a normal pilot. For a test pilot, these odds were higher, at 53%, but were still considerably less than the movie implied. In addition, the movie merely utilized the fictional Mrs. Cooper as a vehicle for the statement; The real Mrs Cooper is not known to have said this.

The film seems to favor the Yeager approach to the NASA approach. It is known that the United States Air Force was working on a one-stage-to orbit space plane (the X-20 Dyna Soar), which lost out to NASA's preferred multi-stage rockets, culminating in the costly Space Shuttle. Yeager's efforts to set altitude and speed records in the modified NF-104 Starfighter is heroic, if a bit quixotic. The director emphasizes it by making it seem that Yeager was unauthorized to fly the plane, rather than unauthorized to attempt a record flight that day.

By comparison, the Mercury astronauts are often depicted in a ludicrous light. Yeager's sexuality, while strong, is socially acceptable, because he lusts after his own wife; at one point, Pancho Barnes tells a would-be groupie that Yeager is beyond her reach. Yeager's marital exploits even threaten the most important flight in his career: he falls off a horse while chasing Glennis and breaks two ribs. But he does the right thing: he doesn't see a doctor but toughs it out, with the aid of tape and a truncated mop handle. He makes the flight, sets the record, and returns in triumph. Later he attempts to set another record, succumbs to mechanical failure, and manages to survive, though he his active duty career would hereafter have him commanding combat formations.

The Mercury astronauts at Cocoa Beach, on the other hand, are chasing after groupies and ignoring their wives; the only exception, John Glenn, shows no sign of passion for his wimpy wife (contrasted to Glamorous Glennis, who is brave and distinctly attractive); his motivation for fidelity is simple risk-aversion (avoiding scandal and demerits, which contrasts with these pilots' Right Stuff. The training sequences, especially the physical-exam scenes in a huge military hospital, show these "heroes" at their worst: passive, embarrassed, helpless. The redundant scatological humor doesn't help these heroes to look heroic: the closest thing to sex is John Glenn jerking off in the hospital Men's Room stall--while singing the Marine Corps Hymn. (We never learn why NASA would care about sperm counts or motility before accepting future astronauts.)

On June 23, 2003, Warner Brothers released a two-DVD Special Edition that featured scene-specific commentaries with key cast and crew members, deleted scenes, three documentaries on the making of the film including interviews with Mercury astronauts and Chuck Yeager, and a feature-length documentary, John Glenn: American Hero.

In addition, the British Film Institute published a book on the movie by Tom Charity in October 1997 that offered a detailed analysis and behind-the-scenes anecdotes.

In 2005, Tom Hanks had expressed interest in a radio interview in producing a new Right Stuff miniseries in hopes of giving the history and the myths associated a bit more in-depth representation.