The Right Stuff

Tom Wolfe

📚 GENRE: History

📃 PAGES: 352

✅ COMPLETED: February 26, 2023

🧐 RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Short Summary

The Right Stuff  takes readers inside Project Mercury, America’s first manned mission to space. Tom Wolfe describes the events that led to Project Mercury, why the program’s seven astronauts were selected, and how the mission set the table for later adventures to the moon.

Key Takeaways

1️⃣ First Mission to Space — Project Mercury was the first mission to space in United States history and set the table for later adventures like Project Apollo, our spaceflight program to the moon. Project Mercury was more or less thrown together quickly after the Soviet Union in 1957 surprised the world by putting into orbit an artificial satellite called Sputnik 1. It was the first time any country had entered space. Powerful rockets like the X-15 and X-20 were in early stages of development and testing with the Air Force, but the U.S. felt the need to respond quickly via Project Mercury given the backdrop of the Cold War and ongoing nuclear tension with Russia. 

2️⃣ Test Subjects — Many military pilots (most of whom had big egos and were usually jealous) scoffed at the seven Mercury astronauts and considered them ‘test subjects.’ The seven astronauts went to space one-by-one inside a small capsule that was strapped to a big rocket. The capsule was fully automated, meaning the person inside the capsule was mostly there to observe things rather than do any piloting work. The military pilots liked to use this against the seven astronauts, especially after a chimp went to space in a test run in 1961. 

3️⃣ Chuck Yeager = Michael Jordan — Chuck Yeager was the Michael Jordan of fighter pilots. Although he wasn’t one of the seven pilots involved with Project Mercury (he wasn’t interested), Yeager was featured throughout the book for his feats in the air. He was a deadly combat pilot in World War II before becoming the first man to break Mach 1 (and the sound barrier) in 1947 as a test pilot with the Air Force. All fighter pilots looked up to him. 

Favorite Quote

“As the speed topped out at Mach 1.05, Yeager had the sensation of shooting straight through the top of the sky. The sky turned a deep purple and all at once the stars and the moon came out — and the sun shone at the same time. He had reached a layer of the upper atmosphere where the air was too thin to contain reflecting dust particles. He was simply looking out into space.”

Book Notes 📑

Foreword

  • The Right Stuff — A report in the 1970s found that a career Navy pilot faced a 23% likelihood of dying in an accident. This book investigates why men were willing to fly high-performance aircraft in training and in battle against such dire odds and what led to Apollo 17, the last mission to the moon in 1972. Many of the men who led Apollo 17 came from military test pilot backgrounds. 

Ch. 1: The Angels

  • Pete Conrad — The book opens with stories from the early days of Pete Conrad’s   fighter pilot career in the U.S. Navy. Conrad graduated from Princeton in 1953 and was a pilot with the Navy before later becoming a NASA astronaut and aeronautical engineer. He’s known for leading the Apollo 12 space mission, on which he became the third person to walk on the Moon. 
  • Navy Beginnings — Conrad’s Navy career began at a military base in Jacksonville, where one of his first missions was leading a small team into a nearby swamp to investigate and recover the remains of a deadly crash involving pilot Bud Jennings. Conrad was later transferred to Patuxent River “Pax River” Naval Air Station in Maryland. This was the Navy’s prime fighter jet test center, and Conrad was there to enter its new test-pilot school. 
  • Deadly Crashes — Unfortunately a lot of pilots died in flight at Pax River and other military bases. The crashes at Pax River involved many pilots Conrad knew personally. Conrad never shied away from flying, though— he was one of many military pilots who were almost addicted to it. 
  • Interesting Fact — One of the most gruesome deaths at Pax River occurred when pilot Ted Whelan’s parachute failed to open after an electrical issue forced him to eject from his fighter jet shortly after takeoff. He fell 8,100 feet and landed on the runway. 

Ch. 2: The Right Stuff

  • Defining the ‘Right Stuff’ — The ‘right stuff’ refers to how military pilots would, in a weird unspoken language type of way, size each other up. You either had the ‘right stuff’ or you didn’t. Those who had it were the best of the best — they flew the sexiest planes and felt they could pull off anything in the air. Those who didn’t have it flew inferior planes, were relegated to a position with the air traffic control tower, or went back to civilian life. Those with the ‘right stuff’ were ‘fighter jocks’ and, in many ways, saw themselves as better than their comrades.
    • Quote (P. 17): “Nor was there a test to show whether or not a pilot had this righteous quality. There was, instead, a seemingly infinite series of tests. A career in flying was like climbing one of those ancient Babylonian pyramids made up of a dizzy progression of steps and ledges, a ziggurat, a pyramid extraordinarily high and steep; and the idea was to prove at every foot of the way up that pyramid that you were one of the elected and anointed ones who had the right stuff, and could move higher and higher and even — ultimately, God willing, one day — that you might be able to join that special few at the very top, that elite who had the capacity to bring tears to a man’s eyes, the very Brotherhood of the Right Stuff itself.”
  • Unspoken Code — The ‘right stuff’ was never really talked about. It was something all military pilots just instinctively knew about. Similar to a high school, “clicks” would develop, with those having the ‘right stuff’ forming their own club of sorts. Having the ‘right stuff’ meant you were “more skilled” and “manlier” than your colleagues.
    • Quote (P. 21): “Perhaps because it could not be talked about, the subject (the ‘right stuff’) began to take on superstitious and even mystical outlines. A man either had it or he didn’t!”
  • Danger & Breaking the Rules — Those who exhibited certain ‘right stuff’ skills felt invincible in the air and had an arrogance about them. Naturally they would push themselves further than most pilots when faced with a dangerous problem, which often led to deadly crashes or ejections that destroyed their multi-million-dollar jets. These pilots would also purposely perform stunts in the air that were strictly prohibited — they believed that because they possessed the ‘right stuff,’ it was “OK” for them to do it.
    • Quote (P. 26): “Once the theorem and the corollary were understood, the Navy’s statistics about one in every four Navy aviators dying meant nothing. The figures were averages, and averages applied to those with average stuff.”
      • Takeaway — The pilots who believed they had this mystical ‘right stuff’ truly thought they had special powers in the air. They bent the rules and never felt like they were going to die up there despite how dangerous flying is. Even if their jet was having issues, they felt they had the skills to get out of any situation. 
  • Interesting Fact — Military pilots in World War II and the Korean War who shot down at least five enemy planes in combat were called “aces.” By the time the Korean War ended, the Air Force had produced 38 aces who accounted for 299 kills. 

Ch. 3: Yeager

  • Chuck Yeager — Perhaps the most skilled of all possessors of the ‘right stuff.’ Yeager grew up in West Virginia and is known as one of the best combat military pilots ever. He enlisted in the Army Air Force in 1941 at the age of 18 and was flying in World War II by 1943 at age 20. He shot down two German fighters in his first eight missions and ended the war with 13.5 kills.
  • Muroc Field — In 1947, Yeager was selected to go to Muroc Field in the Mojave Desert of California for the XS-1 project. At the end of World War I, the Army had discovered that the Germans not only had the world’s first jet fighter but also a rocket plane that had gone 596 mph in tests. Just after the war, a British jet, the Gloster Meteor, jumped the official world speed record from 469 to 606 mph in a single day. At Muroc, the mission was to surpass that by entering Mach 1, the speed of sound around 770 mph. This had never been done, and the Army Air Force believed it was critical to be the first to achieve that mark. The plane selected was the XS-1.
  • Attempting Mach 1 — Many pilots died attempting to reach Mach 1. Jets had a tendency to lock up and prevent pilots from operating the aircraft when reaching extreme speeds. Geoffrey de Havilland, a British fighter pilot, died when trying to reach Mach 1 after his DH 108 completely disintegrated. It was a dangerous mission.
    • Quote (P. 37): “This (Havilland’s death) led engineers to speculate that the shock waves became so severe and unpredictable at Mach 1, no aircraft could survive them. They started talking about ‘the sonic wall’ and ‘the sound barrier.’”
  • Breaking the Sound Barrier — Yeager was the Army Air Force pilot selected to attempt Mach 1 in the XS-1. On October 14, 1947, Yeager broke and surpassed Mach 1, becoming the first man to ever do it. When he did it, there was a huge ‘boom’ that echoed over the desert floor. By breaking through Mach 1, Yeager broke the sound barrier and became forever known for that accomplishment.
    • Quote (P. 44): “As the speed topped out at Mach 1.05, Yeager had the sensation of shooting straight through the top of the sky. The sky turned a deep purple and all at once the stars and the moon came out — and the sun shone at the same time. He had reached a layer of the upper atmosphere where the air was too thin to contain reflecting dust particles. He was simply looking out into space.”
  • Reaching Mach 2 — On November 20, 1953, Scott Crossfield raised the speed record to Mach 2. Three weeks later Yeager flew the X-1A to Mach 2.4.
  • Interesting Fact — In 1947 the National Security Act, Title 10, turned the Army Air Force into the U.S. Air Force, and three years later Muroc Army Air Base became Edwards Air Force Base, named for a test pilot, Glenn Edwards, who had died testing a ship with no tail called the Flying Wing. Edwards Air Force Base was known as the best air base in the country because Yeager and so many other really great pilots trained there. It became known as “the big leagues.” Every pilot wanted to get there. 
  • Sputnik I — In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the rocket that put a 184-pound artificial satellite called Sputnik I into orbit. The move created a panic in the U.S. The fact that the Soviets were able to use a rocket to send a satellite into space meant, as the thinking went, they had rockets capable of delivering intercontinental bombs and missiles. More importantly, the launch of Sputnik meant the Soviets had an early advantage in space. Many people in the U.S. believed you had to win the space battle to win the world, and Sputnik meant the Soviets were ahead of the game.
  • Project Mercury — The Sputnik panic led to the U.S. launching Project Mercury in 1958. This was a sped-up project that involved using available rockets to launch a flying pod (or capsule) into space with a man in it. Rockets equipped with enough power required to put a U.S. satellite into orbit would not be ready for another 4-5 years, so Project Mercury was an attempt to throw something together before then. The job was assigned to NACA, which was converted into NASA. In late December 1958, President Dwight Eisenhower directed NASA to select the astronauts from among the 540 military test pilots already in duty. 
  • Piloting & Project Mercury — The X-15 and X-20 were the rockets the U.S. was developing that would allow somebody to actually pilot the ship. The issue was that they wouldn’t be ready for a few years. Project Mercury was almost like a band aid project — the person inside this thrown-together, makeshift rocket-capsule would not be able to steer it at all. The rocket would send the capsule into space and it would eventually come floating back down into the ocean. The person(s) inside the capsule would have no control. Instead, they would be hooked up with medical devices so doctors and physicians with NASA could study how the body was reacting in space.
    • Quote (P. 60): “In any case, Project Mercury, the human cannonball approach, looked like a Larry Lightbulb scheme, and it gave off the funk of panic. Any pilot who went into it would no longer be a pilot. He would be a laboratory animal wired up from skull to rectum with medical sensors.”
      • Takeaway — Essentially the U.S., startled by Sputnik and the Soviets, scrambled to put together a makeshift rocket that would put a capsule into orbit. They called the assignment Project Mercury. The pilots inside of the capsule would have no control over it; they would just be along for the ride. The X-15 was our true spacecraft, but it was still in testing. 

Ch. 4: The Lab Rat

  • Attracting Astronauts — As Project Mercury began to take shape, it became important to identify a set of astronauts to lead the assignment. In 1959, a group of the best military fighter pilots in the country (including Pete Conrad and Jim Lovell) was summoned to the Pentagon to be briefed on the project. The pilots were told by NASA that all selections would be completely voluntary. They were also told there would be no “piloting” in the sense they were used to — they would essentially have no control and would just be occupying the capsule. Because of the life and career risks involved (military pilots would basically have to give up their fighter pilot careers for a job where they didn’t do any piloting), NASA expected very few volunteers. Surprisingly, 56 of the 60 invited fighter pilots volunteered to become astronauts in Project Mercury. As believers in the ‘right stuff,’ these pilots couldn’t turn down a challenge and the opportunity to become astronauts. 
  • Lovelace Clinic — Project Mercury astronaut candidates were sent to Lovelace Clinic in New Mexico to undergo a battery of tests before going to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio for psychological and stress analysis. At Lovelace, some weird procedures involving hoses, straps, tubes, and needles were performed on the candidates. The candidates even had to give sperm. The prostate exam was brutal. It was an unpleasant experience to say the least. Things weren’t much more normal at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. 
  • The ‘Mercury Seven’ — After extensive testing at Lovelace and Wright-Patterson, NASA selected seven pilots to become astronauts and man the Project Mercury capsule. Conrad and Jim Lovell were not selected. The ‘Mercury Seven,’ as they became known, were: Walter Schirra, Jr., Donald Slayton, John Glenn, Jr., Scott Carpenter, Alan Shepard, Jr., Gus Grissom, and Gordon Cooper. These were NASA’s first space travelers. They were chosen more for their performance in lab testing than their piloting skills. Again, the capsule didn’t have the capability to be “piloted.”

Ch. 5: In Single Combat

  • Becoming Famous — The Mercury Seven became famous almost overnight following NASA’s press conference to introduce them at Dooley Madison House in Washington D.C. in 1959. They were revered for their bravery and willingness to volunteer for the mission. Although they wouldn’t be doing any actual piloting work and weren’t necessarily selected for their piloting skills, the press made them out to be some of the best pilots in the country. 
  • Interesting Fact — In ancient times, an army would pit its best fighter against an enemy’s best fighter and let them duke it out to the death. The winning side depended on who won the individual showdown. The people on the losing side would become slaves to those on the winning side. This was the concept of single combat. David vs. Goliath is an example. The soldiers who were chosen to represent the army or nation were understandably treated like gods and enjoyed a lot of fame and luxury — they were putting their lives on the line for the good of the people. Over time, our current concept of “total war,” where all members of opposing armies fight, became the norm. In many ways, the Mercury Seven situation felt like a single combat scenario with the seven pilots going into space to challenge the Soviets in the “space race” and enjoying huge fame before even starting the mission. 

Ch. 6: On the Balcony

  • Interesting Fact — The commonly accepted boundary line between the earth’s atmosphere and space is roughly 62 miles straight up. An altitude of 50 miles above sea level is where “space” begins. It’s called the Kármán line. 
  • Suborbital Mission — Project Mercury was considered a ‘suborbital’ mission because the rocket they used, the Redstone, could not generate enough power to take a capsule to orbital speed, which is about 18,000 mph. The X-15 was still in testing and needed another 3-4 years to reach orbit. It was capable of reaching space (50+ miles straight up) and test plots accomplished that often, but it didn’t have the power to reach orbit yet. 
  • Interesting Fact — John Glenn, one of Project Mercury’s astronauts, was the first man to ever complete a transcontinental, coast-to-coast flight. On July 16, 1957, he flew from Los Angeles to New York in three hours and thirty-three minutes. The trip was made in an F8U jet and required three in-air refuels. He traveled at speeds higher than Mach 1 the entire time.  
  • Media Frenzy — Shortly after the Mercury Seven astronauts were revealed by NASA, Life Magazine bought the exclusive rights to write about each of the me astronauts and tell their unique personal stories. NASA and each of the seven astronauts were allowed to review and edit the piece as they wished. The story debuted in September 1959. 

Ch. 7: The Cape

  • Cape Canaveral, Florida — Cape Canaveral is where the Mercury Seven spent a lot of time training for the mission. The training was held at Patrick Air Force Base, where the astronauts would sit in a simulated version of the Project Mercury capsule. Patrick Air Force Base was the headquarters of the Atlantic Missile Range and was where the military tested the weaponry of the Cold War: guided missiles, intermediate-range, ballistic missiles, and intercontinental ballistic missiles. The new secret launching facility where all of these rockets and missiles were launched was at the very north end of the Cape. 
  • Cocoa Beach — The place to be in Cape Canaveral was Cocoa Beach, a place where a lot of mischievous things happened. The astronauts would train for 10-12 hours per day and then let loose by driving fast cars that were leased to them for free, visiting Cocoa Beach, and partying at the various motels in town. 
  • Mercury Seven Personalities — The seven astronauts selected for Project Mercury had very different personalities. John Glenn was the most clean-living of the group and often tried tell the others how they should carry themselves. A real division began to take place over time. Below is a look at the personalities:  
    • John Glenn — “Mr. Perfect.” He was ambitious, religious, and lived a clean life while the other astronauts partied and ran around with other women. Glenn would often lecture the others about holding themselves to a higher standard, which led to some animosity towards him. 
    • Scott Carpenter — The others couldn’t take him seriously because he had a lot less military flying experience than everyone else. They wondered why he was even selected. Carpenter looked up to Glenn and stuck around him the most. It almost became Glenn and Carpenter vs. the other five astronauts. 
    • Wally Schirra — Liked to live on the wild side along with Gus Grissom. 
    • Al Shepard — Was one of the Navy’s best test pilots and had two sides to personality: An Iceman Commander side and a Party Boy side. The other astronauts had a hard time figuring him out. At home, he was the Iceman. But when he left home, he had a tendency to live on the wild side. 
    • Gordon Cooper — Many people, even those inside of NASA, doubted Cooper because he had the least amount of flying experience. He was always the ‘underdog’ of the group and was the last of the seven to make a Project Mercury flight into space. 
    • Gus Grissom — A great pilot who liked to race cars in Cape Canaveral and run around with women. He and Schirra were the two that lived most adventurously. They wanted nothing to do with the publicity and warm treatment that came with being one of the Mercury Seven astronauts. 

Ch. 8: The Thrones

  • Emergence of Computers — Much like the invention of the magnetic compass allowed Christopher Columbus to sail across the Atlantic Ocean, the emergence of high-speed computers allowed something like Project Mercury to take place. These computers hadn’t been in production until 1951, but by 1960 engineers were already using them to guide rockets into space by building them into the engine and programming them to control the ship’s temperature, pressure, oxygen supply and more. 
  • Test Subjects — Because these computers were making the decisions and controlling much of the experience, the Project Mercury astronauts were basically test subjects, not pilots. Biomedical research was the real reason the astronauts were in the capsule. They were hooked up with many different wires and hoses so NASA could see what was happening to them in space. The X-15 and X-20 rockets were still in testing, but those ships would eventually require true piloting. Many people argued against having pilots in the Project Mercury rocket-capsule at all because these pilots had been trained to take action their entire lives. In this assignment, anybody in the capsule needed to just let things be and let the computers work. 
    • Quote (P. 142): “Even as late as the summer of 1960, at an Armed Forces-National Research Council conference at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, on ‘the training of astronauts,’ various engineers and scientists from outside NASA thought nothing of describing the Mercury rocket-capsule vehicle as a fully automated system in which ‘the astronaut does not need to turn a hand’… If the automatic system broke down, he might step in as a repair man or manual conductor. Above all, of course, he would be wired with biosensors and a microphone to see how a human being responded to the stress of the flight. That would be his main function.”
    • Quote (P. 147): “There was very little action that an astronaut could take in a Mercury capsule, other than to abort the flight and save his own life. So he was not being trained to fly the capsule. He was being trained to ride in it.”
  • Astronauts Fight Back — The Mercury Seven eventually began to fight the notion that they were merely test subjects, or guinea pigs, in the capsule. These were all experienced military pilots, and they began to sense that their colleagues at bases around the country were starting to look down on them because they wouldn’t be piloting anything on the Mercury flight. The seven pilots began asking NASA to publicly call the capsule a “spacecraft.” They also began to demand other things — like changes to the capsule that gave them more control and military planes to fly during Mercury training in order to maintain their ‘elite’ piloting skills. They didn’t like how their military fraternity began to sneer at them. 
  • Chimpanzees — At the same time the Mercury Seven began their training, 1959, NASA set up a Project Mercury chimpanzee colony at Holloman Air Force Base in the desert of New Mexico, where 20 veterinarians worked with 40 chimpanzees. The idea was that one of the chimps would be chosen to take the first Project Mercury flight so NASA could study the effects of space on the animal before later putting a man on board. NASA wanted to know if a chimp — similar to physiologically similar to humans — would handle the stress of the flight and be able to use his brain and hands normally. 
    • Operant Conditioning — The chimps were put through almost the exact same training routine as the astronauts. They were placed in simulators and were instructed to operate the various switches and buttons in the capsule on command. The veterinarians placed shockers on each chimp’s feet and buzzed him if he did something wrong in order to condition the animal to do what it was being told. 
  • The X-15 — The X-15 rocket project was beginning to pick up steam in 1960 At Edwards Air Force Base. Pilots like Scott Crossfield, Bob White, and Joe Walker were continuing to test the rocket plane and make big progress. Crossfield was the manufacturer’s chosen pilot and tested the plane’s power system and basic aerodynamics. White, the Air Force’s chosen X-15 pilot, and Walker, NASA’s prime X-15 pilot, were tasked with testing the rocket by pushing it to its limits — Mach 6 and 280,000 altitude (53 miles straight up). The majority of their testing was using the rocket’s ‘little engine’ — engineers were working on a bigger engine that would give the plane more thrust in the near future. By 1963, the test pilots were reaching space (50+ miles straight up). 
    • Project Mercury Delays — By mid-1960, Project Mercury was still not close to being ready. The point of Project Mercury was to quickly get men into space to counter what the Soviets were doing while the X-15, NASA’s true first spacecraft, was being developed. But the X-15 was making such great progress that people began to wonder if that project would beat Project Mercury to the punch. 
      • Quote (P. 160): “That was the whole point of choosing the Mercury system. It was dirty — but it was quick; supposedly. But the Mercury capsule wasn’t even ready yet. There had been one delay after another. It was beginning to look unlikely that there would be a manned launch before 1961. The X-15 project was now actually ahead of Project Mercury in the attempt to reach space.”
  • Project Mercury in Jeopardy — Fueled by the X-15’s continued progress and two humiliating Project Mercury launch test failures in 1960, there was real debate as to whether Project Mercury should be continued. Following the two launch failures, the head of NASA was fired along with several others. Meanwhile the Air Force was continuing to set new records in test X-15 test flights and was making strides in its development of the X-20. President John F. Kennedy had recently been elected to replace Dwight Eisenhower and was interested in changing course. All of these events were going on as the Soviets were launching new ‘Korabl’ Sputniks into space. 

Ch. 9: The Vote

  • Full Steam Ahead — Everybody at NASA operated with extreme urgency in late 1960.  Nobody there wanted to see President Kennedy cancel Project Mercury. As NASA engineers and technicians scrambled to get the capsule and Redstone/Atlas rocket ready, the seven Mercury astronauts were asked to take a peer vote to determine which of them would make the first flight to space once everything was ready. Al Shepard won the peer vote. John Glenn and Gus Grissom were selected as the backup pilots. 
  • Monkey Flight — In January 1961 NASA held what was the most important launch test in space program history at that time. The 40 chimps at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico had been narrowed down to 18 before a final selection was made. Test subject Number 61, they later called him ‘Ham’ when he was presented to the press, was chosen to lead the first occupied test flight to space. They hooked him up with sensors, strapped him in the capsule, and let him go for the ride. He did great, flipping the switches when needed as the capsule entered space. He later came back down and landed in the Atlantic Ocean, where he and the capsule were recovered safely. The success of this flight was big because it almost guaranteed President Kennedy would give Project Mercury at least one shot with a man inside the capsule. 
  • Vostok I — On April 12, 1961, just three weeks before Shepard was scheduled to attempt Project Mercury’s first manned mission to space, the Soviet Union sent a five-ton Sputnik called Vostok I into orbit with a man aboard, a 27-year-old test pilot named Yuri Gagarin. Vostok I completed one orbit around Earth before bringing Gagarin down safely on land near the Soviet village of Smelovka. As hard as NASA was pushing to put the first human in space via Project Mercury, the Soviets got there first and Gagarin became the world’s first man to reach space. 

Ch. 10: Righteous Prayer

  • Shepard Takes Flight — On May 5, 1961, Project Mercury’s first manned launch was successful and Shepard became the first man in United States history to enter space. The Atlas rocket had a smooth takeoff and the capsule later detached from the rocket without a problem. He was in space for five minutes before drifting back towards earth. The parachute deployed and he landed safely in the Atlantic Ocean, where a rescue helicopter retrieved him. The entire flight was around 15 minutes in total. 

Ch. 11: The Unscrewable Pooch

  • Going to the Moon — Almost immediately following Shepard’s successful flight, President John F. Kennedy decided to think big: he wanted to go to the Moon. Kennedy appeared before Congress on May 25, 1961 to make his pitch. His idea was to start a new space program that would take a man to the Moon and back by 1970. Congress agreed and immediately gave NASA a $1.7 billion starting budget, and that was just the beginning. They were willing to give NASA any amount needed to get the job done. Kennedy wanted the U.S. to be the first country to put a man on the moon. The Soviet Union was still beating us badly in space, and Kennedy believed the moon program would change that. 
  • Grissom Takes Flight — On July 21, 1961, the second Mercury flight was completed by Gus Grissom. The flight did not go as well as Shepard’s did. Grissom landed in the Atlantic Ocean, but panicked and blew the capsule’s emergency hatch before the helicopters were ready. Water flooded in and sank the capsule before it could be recovered. Grissom came close to drowning, but was eventually saved. 

Ch. 12: The Tears

  • Vostok 2 — On August 6, 1961, just 16 days after Grissom’s flight, the Soviets sent Vostok 2 into orbit with a man named Gherman Titov aboard. Vostok 2 circled the earth for an entire day, completing 17 full orbits. 
  • Orbital Flight — The success of Vostok 2 sent the U.S. into panic mode again. NASA ended the suborbital flights (into space but not in orbit) on the Mercury rocket that Shepard and Grissom had manned, and began shifting its focus to flights that would orbit earth using the Atlas rocket. John Glenn was the astronaut chosen to attempt Project Mercury’s first orbital flight. If successful, he would be the first American to complete an orbital flight. 
  • Enos — In November 1961, a chimpanzee named Enos made an orbital flight test run using the Atlas rocket. He successfully completed two orbits around the earth. Much like the monkey named Ham made the first suborbital flight test run earlier that year before Shepard’s mission, Enos was setting the stage for John Glenn to attempt a manned orbital mission. 
  • Glenn Takes Flight — On February 20, 1962, John Glenn successfully completed the first orbital flight around the earth in U.S. history. The rocket took him up and catapulted him into earth’s orbit. He was initially scheduled for seven, but completed three trips around the earth before landing in the Atlantic Ocean. Although all three had went to space, orbiting around the earth was the difference between Glenn’s flight and those of Shepard and Grissom. The flight lasted five hours in total and was a big success. Following the flight, the entire country went wild celebrating Glenn for the achievement. 

Ch. 13: The Operational Stuff

  • Houston — Following the success of Glenn’s orbital flight, President Kennedy’s mission to the Moon began to ramp up. All seven Project Mercury astronauts moved to Houston, Texas, where the U.S. was building a Manned Spacecraft Center on a thousand acres of cattle pasture. The Cape (Cape Canaveral) would still be the launching center, but all operations and training would be in Houston. 
  • Carpenter Takes Flight — On May 24, 1962, three months after Glenn’s flight, Scott Carpenter led the fourth Project Mercury flight into space and the second m orbital flight in U.S. history. He completed three orbits around Earth and everything went pretty well. NASA asked him to perform several new experiments while he was up there. He got a little carried away with the experiments and drained a lot of his fuel prematurely, which made his descent interesting. He re-entered Earth’s atmosphere a little off course and ultimately landed 250 miles away from his target landing area in the Atlantic Ocean. A recon plane eventually located and rescued him, but many people, including some news anchors, thought he was dead or would never be found. 
    • Quote (P. 296): “He (Carpenter) was swinging the capsule this way and that way, taking photographs a mile a minute, making detailed observations of the sunrises and horizon, releasing balloons, tending his bottles, taking readings with the densitometer, having a grand time. The only problem was that the new control system used up fuel at a terrific rate.”
  • Vostok 3 and Vostok 4 — In August 1962, the Russians sent Vostok 3 and 4 into orbit in successive days. The two manned satellites flew within three miles of each other in orbit around the Earth. The Soviets continued to maintain their lead on the U.S. in space.
  • Schirra Takes Flight — In October 1962 Wally Schirra manned the third orbital flight in U.S. history. He completed six orbits around earth, several more than Glenn and Carpenter. Unlike Glenn and Carpenter, the primary goal of Schirra’s flight was to conserve the capsule’s hydrogen peroxide fuel and land on target. He did both. He still had 75% of his fuel after six orbits before making a perfect descent into the Atlantic. The reason he was able to conserve so much fuel was because he allowed the capsule to rotate/swivel freely, whereas Glenn and Carpenter used their hydrogen peroxide thrusters to keep the capsule upright. 

Ch. 14: The Club

  • The ‘Next Nine’ — Project Mercury began to wrap up towards the end of 1963 and the focus shifted towards Project Apollo, the mission to the Moon. Much like the Mercury Seven selection in 1959, NASA conducted another search for nine more experienced military fighter pilots to lead Project Apollo. The application field was narrowed down to about 30 finalists who had to go through similar physical testing as well as formal interviews with NASA led by a few of the Mercury Seven astronauts, including John Glenn, Deke Slayton, and Al Shepard. The ‘Next Nine’ included:
    • Neil Armstrong
    • Frank Borman
    • Pete Conrad
    • Jim Lovell
    • James McDivitt
    • Elliot See
    • Tom Stafford
    • Ed White
    • John Young 
  • Glenn Becomes Top Dog — From the start John Glenn was the most mature, hard-working, disciplined, responsible, and driven of the Mercury Seven astronauts. After completing the first orbital flight in U.S. history in 1962, he really became the poster boy for NASA. Politicians wanted to be seen with him. Citizens wanted his autograph. The media idolized him. NASA wanted him to the the face of the organization. In many ways, he was the ‘top dog’ of the Mercury Seven. 
    • Quote (P. 322): “Glenn had not been the first man to fly in Earth orbit or even the second, merely the first American. Yet he had ascended to a status so extraordinary it had no precedent. Some of the boys were convinced that Glenn had his eyes set on becoming President. Glenn now moved in a world full of the Kennedys, the Johnsons, senators, congressman, foreign dignitaries, heads of corporations, VIPs of every description. Next to John Kennedy himself, John Glenn was probably the best-known and most admired American in the world.”
  • Cooper Takes Flight — Gordon Cooper made the final Project Mercury flight in May 1963. He was the last of the Mercury Seven to take flight and completed 22 orbits around Earth, the longest of the seven trips. His mission lasted around 34 hours, making him the first American to spend an entire day in space. Because his capsule experienced a few electrical issues in the final few orbits, Cooper lost his auto-piloting functionality and had to make a manual landing where he controlled nearly all aspects of the capsule’s re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. Like the others, he was celebrated by the masses when he returned home. 

Ch. 15: The High Desert

  • Astronauts > Pilots — Over time it became clear, even to pilots themselves, that astronauts were on a different level than military pilots. Throughout this book, Wolfe describes how military pilots “looked down on” and “laughed at” the Project Mercury astronauts because there was no real traditional ‘piloting’ going on in the capsule. But by the late 1960s rockets and planes/jets were being designed to be primarily controlled by computers. Eventually every military pilot — even those at the prestigious Edwards Air Force Base — wanted to be an astronaut. At Edwards, the Air Force even had a program designed to get their pilots selected by NASA. The program was called the Aerospace Research Pilot School (ARPS) and was run by Chuck Yeager. 
  • Yeager Escapes Death — Yeager nearly died in 1963 when he tried to break an altitude world record of 113,890 feet set by the Soviets. The record was for an aircraft taking off under its own power (i.e. not a rocket). He attempted to break the old record using the NF-104, an F-104 with a rocket engine attached to the tailpipe. It was a new aircraft at Edwards, and nobody really knew its limits. Yeager pushed it hard to 104,000 feet before encountering issues that put him into a horrible spin. He eventually ejected at around 11,000 feet, but complications from the ejection led to half of his face and his left index finger catching fire. 
    • B-57 — Yeager quickly returned to flight status following his near-death experience and later led hundreds of B-57 tactical bomber missions in Southeast Asia. He was the Michael Jordan of fighter pilots. 
  • X-20 Cancelled — U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara announced in 1963 the cancellation of the X-20 rocket program that the Air Force had been developing at Edwards Air Force Base for several years. Cancelling the X-20 program meant that all space endeavors would run through NASA, a civilian organization. The military would no longer have any kind of competing space program.