Kassandra

 = = **__The Right Stuff __** **Summary-** //The Right Stuff// is a novel by [|Tom Wolfe]about seven brave and daring men who are to take on [|Project Mercury]; however, they had to go through tough training experiences that many of us will never face. It all started with the first human spaceflight program of the United States, Project Mercury. It began in 1959 and lasted through 1963 with the goal of putting a human in orbit around the Earth for research. Before they could go up into space they needed trained professional astronauts. Political reasons came up with the ideas of putting people into space for only sent up for promotional reasons. This declared that the Mercury astronauts were actually a burden to the program. While all of these political ideas and thoughts floated about, they began to form a group of willing candidates, most of which were arrogant test pilots, who believed that they could be the first U.S. astronaut. But they knew only seven were going to be chosen. They went through humiliating tests and had to have physical and mental requirements. Finally after sorting through all the test pilot candidates, NASA in April 1959 decided on seven pilots: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton. These men were the Mercury Seven. They had proven NASA to be the best test pilots around who were willing to go up into space. All of these men knew that none of them were as great as Chuck Yeager. He was a test pilot who had broken the sound barrier and flew the first rocket planes. The story adventure ends with only six of the seven astronauts flew Mercury missions, because Deke Slayton was removed from flight status due to a heart condition. The astronauts named their own spacecraft, and all added "7" to the name to acknowledge the teamwork of their fellow astronauts. The ones that launched are Freedom 7, Liberty Bell 7, Friendship 7, Aurora 7, Sigma 7, and Faith 7. The first two to launch were Mercury-Redstone, three and four and the rest were all Mercury-Atlas six, seven, eight, and nine. Only six launched because of Deke Slayton’s heart condition and some later were canceled. Alan Shepard was the first American to make a suborbital flight into space. **Theme- ** The novel is //The Right Stuff// written by Tom Wolfe. Theme is the main message that the author tries to get across to the reader in their text. The theme in //The Right Stuff// is achieving high goals that are thought to be impossible, commitment towards these goals and also sacrificing your life for to reach these goals. The Author’s purpose of the novel is to inform and take us into the lives of these men during the time. Wolfe achieves to tell and show us about what goes on in these individual men’s mind. He teaches us about the men and their commitment to reach nearly impossible goals for that time period. He also wants to accomplish by entertaining and informing us about what happened to these men and others that were involved in the goal to go into outer space (Project Mercury which was JFK’s dream) Wolfe tries to say in this is that we should honor these men by completing Project Mercury and going out into space. I agree that we should honor these men and what they have done to change history and improved our technology. These men were committed and risked their lives to reach that goal.

I believe The Right Stuff is one of the best creative nonfiction books out there. Tom Wolfe puts so much detail and imagery into the story that it makes you feel like you are taking this adventure with these men and women. One of my favorite paragraphs that show lots of detail and imagery is on page 5 in the first chapter. “ When Conrad finally reached the plane, which was an SNJ, he found the fuselage burned and blistered and dug into the swamp with one wing sheared off and the cockpit canopy smashed. In the front seat was all that was left of his friend Bud Jennings. Bud Jennings, an amiable fellow, a promising young fighter pilot, was now a horrible roasted hulk — with no head. His head was completely gone, apparently torn off the spinal column like a pineapple off a stalk, except that it was nowhere to be found.” That just shows you how much time he spent on this book making it absolutely breathtaking. Some of the details are gruesome, but it makes you feel like you are actually in the adventure! A connection I had been between the world and the book were what happened back then is still happening now. Since we are in war, more and more people are joining militaries. They are leaving behind families and loved ones to defend our country.
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