Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff is a nonfiction book about the test pilots of the post-World War II period and their role in the development of manned space flight in the United States. The book is a work of "new journalism" combining nonfictional events with many novelistic techniques, including imaginary conversations and a strongly personal narrative voice that enters into the thoughts of various characters.
The people who are represented as having the "right stuff" are the test pilots who flew experimental aircraft. Wolfe represents pilot Chuck Yeager as “the most righteous of all the possessors of the right stuff.” This "right stuff" meant not only measurable piloting skills of the sort that enabled someone to land an aircraft on a carrier at night in rough seas, but also the ability to remain calm in an emergency and never to show fear. Wolfe talks about how pilots had a social hierarchy based on their exploits and the way they pulled off an unflappable sort of calm machismo in a high-risk environment.
Test pilots were originally uncertain about whether they wanted to apply for the astronaut training program, as it seemed to be more a matter of being a meticulous technician than an heroic daredevil, but eventually, especially as the rockets were increasingly designed to allow an element of control to the astronauts, they began to train as astronauts, feeling that the role required many of the same characteristics of calm in the face of extreme danger as being a pilot.
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