The Right Stuff

Tom Wolfe's account of America's first astronauts and the test-pilot culture that produced them, tracing the postwar era of experimental rocket planes through the founding of NASA's Mercury program. Wolfe follows the Mercury Seven from selection through the program's six missions (1961–1963), weaving in the Cold War stakes and the informal, unspoken code of "the right stuff" — the mix of nerve, skill, and swagger that separated the astronauts from equally skilled pilots, like Chuck Yeager, who were never chosen. Winner of the National Book Award for Nonfiction.