The Real Right Stuff

The Shirley Temple program usually seen at this time

will not be presented

in order that we may bring you the following special broadcast.

We have interrupted this program

for a special broadcast from Cape Canaveral.

May 5th, 1961, certainly a day to be entered in the history books.

Although the astronaut launch is being seen close up

and live on television screens,

hundreds of persons traveled to Cocoa Beach to see with their own eyes

at long distance, the streak of flame as the Redstone heads skyward.

I don't know any words for this except the trite ones.

Tension is mounting here at Cape Canaveral.

The world watches with interest.

The public has no trouble feeling concern for the man who lies on his back

at the nose end of a Redstone missile.

Somehow, this doesn't seem to be the place for a human being.

We're looking at this as eventually a big exploration.

We hope to lay the foundation

for much broader exploration in the future.

I'm sure you've given some thought to the possibility that

this flight may not turn out well and that you may not come back.

One man, backed up by a team of 10,000,

backed up by the most elaborate devices that science can invent.

But still, one man, alone, in a tiny shell on top of a rocket.

When we asked NASA for some pictures of the original American astronauts,

John Glenn and the six others chosen in 1959 for Project Mercury,

look what we got.

The Seven in their spacesuits as formal as a class picture

or a management training group.

But these, too, are the men who are going to fly off into space

and catch us up with the Russians and win the Cold War

against Sputnik with their hair down and their burnouses up

after four days of survival training in the desert.

What were the astronauts?

Tall in-the-capsule superheroes or just a bunch of regular fighter jocks?

Well, writer Tom Wolfe has spent a number of years now looking into their story

and he has written it into a book called, The Right Stuff.

It's not the kind of story that we heard at the time from the space managers

and from the politicians, or even from the American press.

Tom Wolfe, nice to have you with us this morning.

- Tom, good to see you. - Uh, were we in need of heroes

when these astronauts came along?

Is that why we were so eager to build them up into kind of false gods?

Right now, it's so hard to remember what a... how seriously the Cold War

was taken back in the... in the late '50s.

You are the first Americans to see this launching of Sputnik 1

from the desert of Kyzylkum, in the Soviet Union.

And now back tonight and trying for 20,000 dollars are Eddie Hodges,

the ten-year-old schoolboy, and his partner, Major John Glenn, Jr.,

the Marine Corps jet pilot.

Uh, what do you think of the Russian satellite,

which is circling the earth at 18,000 miles per hour?

It's the first time anybody has ever been able to get anything out that far

in space and keep it there for any length of time.

And this is probably the first step toward space travel or moon travel,

something we'll probably run into maybe in Eddie's lifetime here at least.

(CHUCKLES) Eddie, would you like to take a trip to the moon?

No, sir, I like it fine right here.

Democrat Senator Jackson of Washington describes

the Russian achievement as a devastating blow to the prestige of The United States.

As the satellite travels around the world once every hour and a half,

its radio transmitters, powered by chemical batteries,

that are apparently sending back coded messages to the Russians.

The White House sizes up the situation this way,

The launching of Russia's and the world's first

artificial moon is of great scientific interest but comes as no surprise.

General, are you awed by the Russian accomplishment

with this big Sputnik?

You're only awed by the things that you don't understand

or don't believe someone can do.

In other words, we know what they had to know to do this?

- Certainly, we know it. Why haven't we done it?

Well, we got started late.

We didn't get about the job as early as we might have.

Now we have to work like blazes to catch up.

It means they're getting ahead of us and we certainly need to...

start working hard to catch up.

I think it's about time America woke up and did something about it.

There was a sense in this country that it was all important...

to catch up with the Russians in space.

John McCormick, who was then the Speaker of the House of Representatives,

was getting up and saying we face national extinction

if we do not catch up with the Russians.

In desperation, the United States looked to the Vanguard.

Nearly 200 newsmen from all over the world were flown down

for the big turkey shoot.

At the launching site, they were given a play-by-play account.

They witnessed each tiny detail of the usually top-secret preparation.

And inside the block house, the tension steadily mounted.

America's prestige had never been lower than at this moment,

11:45 a.m., December 6, 1957.

There is a tremendous gap between promise and performance.

I believe the American people want action...

And are demanding that we get going with our program.

Public opinion in the civilized world has grown accustomed to

fast scientific progress.

Already, the idea of Sputnik whirling through space has become accepted

and people are saying, "What comes next? What comes after Sputnik? After Vanguard?"

Well, the next step has been planned for a long time. It is a manned satellite.

Catch up on all fronts. That was the imperative.

So a so-called quick and dirty approach was seized upon.

They would try to launch not a flying ship

but a pod, a container, a capsule... with a man in it.

The man would not be a pilot.

He would be a human cannonball.

He would not be able to alter the course of the capsule in the slightest.

The job was assigned to NACA,

the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics,

which was converted into NASA.

We will be developing and launching into space,

vehicles needed to obtain scientific data and to explore the solar system.

N.A.S.A. will have about 300 million dollars

for its program in fiscal 1959,

and with this appropriation, we must press forward

the current research programs in our laboratories.

We must contract for work by others in such fields as electronics and guidance

and other areas where we have neither the special competence,

nor the facilities that are needed.

We must accelerate our development programs.

We must acquire the vehicles that will carry our data-gathering apparatus,

and ultimately man, into space.

The program to pick the first man to American to try to pilot

a rocket into orbit in space has begun.

U.S. space chief T. Keith Glennan announced tonight

the American manned satellite program will be called Project Mercury,

its pilots will be known as Mercury Aeronauts,

and one of their number, all volunteers,

will make the first spaceflight.

Two months before the astronauts were chosen they were still considering

using racing car drivers, mountain climbers, scuba divers,

infantry men, anybody who had faced stress and dangerous situations

successfully would be allowed to apply for astronaut

because there wasn't any flying to be done.

Finally, Eisenhower decided, "Well, hell, we've got 500 test pilots "

"in the military. We can call them to Washington tomorrow."

So let's get them from this group of people we can totally control

and get on with it.

So they bring in these test pilots.

From all of the active duty pilots in the Navy, Marines, and Air Force,

the service records of 473 test pilots were selected for review.

110 met the basic qualifications.

The Right Stuff is both a code of behavior and a mystical belief.

As test pilots, you have to be willing to go up and hang your mortal hide out

over the edge and then have the experience and the moxie and the talent

to pull it back in, and then go up the next day

and the next day and the next day and the next day, even,

uh, the series is infinite.

Phase two of the selection program

was a very thorough physical examination.

And the men continued on to the third phase.

This phase involved exposure to the acceleration, lowered pressure,

noise, and other stresses expected in space flight.

At a Washington news conference, officials introduced seven carefully

chosen military test pilots as America's first spacemen.

How are the kids' appetites tonight?

Probably pretty good.

Better than usual or worse than usual?

Well, probably a little bit, uh, they'll, uh, be too excited.

Maybe they won't eat as much as they usually do.

Well, this is supposed to have been a very tightly kept secret.

How... how did you begin to suspect something?

Well, listening to the news.

Well, all seven of the men are officers and test pilots.

Three Air Force, three Navy, and one Marine. All are volunteers.

Doctor T. Keith Glennan, National Aeronautical

and Space administrator introduced them this afternoon at a news conference.

Which of these men will be first to orbit the Earth, I cannot tell you.

He won't know himself until the day of the flight.

It's my pleasure to introduce... to you,

and I consider it a very real honor, gentlemen...

from your right, Malcolm S. Carpenter,

Leroy G. Cooper, John H. Glenn,

Virgil I. Grissom,

Walter M. Schirra,

Alan B. Shepard, Donald K. Slayton.

These, ladies, and gentlemen, are the nation's Mercury astronauts.

The question everybody wants to ask, "What do the wives and children "

"of these men think of their ambitions to go into space?"

My wife's attitude toward this has been the same as it has been

all along through all my flying, that, uh...

if it's what I want to do and she's behind it

and the kids are, too, a 100 percent.

Well, my wife feels the same way or, of course, I couldn't be here.

And she's, uh, with me all the way and the boys are too little to, uh,

realize what's going on yet, but I'm sure they'd feel the same way.

My wife has agreed that professional opinions are mine, career's mine,

but we also have to have a family life

that we like and this is part of the agreement.

I have no problems at home. My family's in complete agreement.

John Glenn was actually unique among the seven

in terms of his personality.

I'm John Glenn, I'm the lonesome Marine on this outfit

and I'm, uh, 37. I, jokingly, uh, of course, said that, uh,

I got on this project because it'd probably be the nearest

to heaven I'd ever get, and I wanted to make the most of it.

- (ALL LAUGH) - But, uh...

my feelings are that this whole project with regard to... to space sort of stands

with us now as... as if you wanna look at it one way,

like the Wright brothers stood at Kitty Hawk about 50 years ago.

At the very first press conference John Glenn proved