The Right Stuff

Tom Wolfe's account of the early American space program follows the test pilots who flew experimental rocket planes after the war and the first astronauts chosen for NASA's Project Mercury. Wolfe set out to learn why the astronauts accepted such danger, and he interviewed the pilots, the Mercury Seven, their wives and others. Chuck Yeager, who was never picked as an astronaut, becomes the model of the test pilot's unspoken code of courage. The narrative dwells on the personal lives of the astronauts and their families more than on the flights, and it argues that politics and publicity shaped the program. It won the National Book Award for Nonfiction and was adapted into a film and a television series.

Richard Branson included it on his list of 65 books to read in a lifetime, and writer Cal Fussman named it in Tools of Titans as a book he would hand to every boy graduating from high school.