Courage is The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe Essay -- Tom Wolfe

Courage is The Right Stuff by tomcat WolfeTom Wolfes overbold The Right Stuff, gives an accurate description into the lives of the first astronauts and roquette-powered aircraft test pilots, from their careers before, during, and after their selection to become astronauts, through to their private home lives. All throughout his book, Wolfe refers to the right lug and this righteous stuff without ever saying upfront what the stuff really is. I have concluded that throughout the story, the right stuff is simply courage. I would personally define courage as The willingness to put yourself in a potentially dangerous situation. It is never easy to put yourself into a dangerous position, this is because our reason is programmed for survival, but there are ways to better equip our brain so that these situations become less dangerous. A couple of these ways are with our innate instincts and good training.When you have natural instincts for something, it makes that task easier tha n for someone who doesnt have the same instincts. There was a good part of Wolfes book that described how instincts led to Gordon make being selected into the Mercury Program. It was when he was doing the initial interview sessions when the NASA psychologists were asking candidates about their family lives, Cooper was commensurate to sense the correct answers and describe his family disembodied spirit as terrific, when in fact they were separated. Coopers natural people person instincts helped him recognize what this line of questioning was about, kept him in the running for an astronaut position-which he later received-and was able to reconcile with his wife so they looked like the model family.Throughout his book, Wolfe describes training that these men ... ...flight.So after reading stories of astronauts, their families, and test pilots, I take Tom Wolfes phrase The Right Stuff to mean courage that was obtained from natural instinct and training. Without any of these spec ial traits, I believe that finding a person to locomote strapped onto a rocket into the heavens would have been a very difficult one for the military and NASA. They are the intangible items that make the difference between life and death when a person is placed in a dangerous situation.BIBLIOGRAPHYWolfe, Tom. The Right Stuff. New York, NY Bantam Books, 2001.Wolfes novel describes the early years of the manned rocket flight era. He tells stories from legends like Chuck Yeager, Allen Shepard, Neil Armstrong, and Gordon Cooper. These stories tell about their histories from screenings to become astronauts to being record-setting test pilots.