The Right Stuff By Tom Wolfe: American Pilots

Student Name Professor Name Course Date The Right Stuff Novels and books have long been considered an excellent source of information, but their subjects are never stable and consistent: the tones of the books, their flavors, and their entire angles change with time. For instance, the books that unveiled the truths of nature previously have been replaced by fantasy novels and fabricated stories. Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff evolved from his curiosity about some American pilots who were ready to accept challenges and face problems to accomplish their mission. This book is all about the author’s understanding of the time when the United States entered the space race (Wolfe 2018). At the heart of this marvelous story is “the right stuff,” the characteristics those astronauts and test pilots possessed and the unique traits that helped them deal with the issues willingly and eagerly. It looked like they were not concerned about their life; instead, they want to become the heroes of tomorrow, and for this, they were ready to risk their own lives. In today’s fast-paced and competitive world, media has become a must part of our lives. Now we come across a lot of stories about the warriors, but in The Right Stuff, the actual warriors (astronauts and test pilots), as well as their families, didn’t care about media coverage. What they wanted was success and accomplishment of their project. After reading the novel, we get to know that Tom Wolfe was very much interested in talking about those astronauts and test pilots. He sheds light on who they were, what was their lifestyle, where did they come from, what were their feelings when perched atop 20,000 pounds of liquid oxygen, and what they wanted to prove (Wolfe 2018). These days, NASA and other space agencies promote their space projects a lot, and the primary mediums of promotion are social media and television ads. Wolfe, in The Right Stuff, briefly explored the functions of media and press, the lifestyles of astronauts and the fraternity of fliers. On the whole, this novel discusses how American culture evolved and how media and press strengthened with time. This book tells the story of America’s first step into space. Prior to Wolfe, no one had written about fighter pilots. For the first time, Tom decided to cover an entirely different story fa...