Why people recommend it
Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff is a dramatic chronicle of the early American space program and the test pilots who risked everything to break the sound barrier and reach orbit. Astronaut Terry Virts shared on The Joe Rogan Experience that reading Wolfe's book in high school motivated him to become an astronaut despite coming from a family with no aviation background. Actor Dennis Quaid mentioned on The Tucker Carlson Show that the book inspired him to play Gordo Cooper in the film adaptation, reading it rapidly as a young man. On StarTalk Radio, astronaut Scott Kelly told Neil deGrasse Tyson that the book was a significant, formative part of his life that inspired him to study harder and fly in the Navy. Kelly and Jordan Klepper revisited the book's legacy of inspiring space exploration, while hosts Chuck Nice and Neil deGrasse Tyson frequently referenced the phrase 'the right stuff' to describe the unique qualities required for frontier space travel.
Who recommended it
- Terry Virts Discussed
Terry Virts — 1 mention
“the right stuff was i it's what motivated me to be an astronaut I read that book as a in high school and it kind of i didn't know anything like no one in my family had ever been an astronaut or a pilot And so that right stuff book showed me how to be an astronaut”
Mentioned on the show without a named speaker — 6
“and uh so you know I grew up wanting to be and then Along Came the book uh and I read it like in two days and wanted to play Gordo Cooper because he was my favorite astronaut back then”
“So yeah, have you read Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff? Yeah.”
“but uh you know regarding the book the right stuff uh the movie you mentioned the movie i think i maybe maybe saw it once Really the book was much more significant uh part of my life really was what's inspired me to become a better student and uh to go on and fly in the in the navy and”
“he was talking a lot about the right stuff and how that was a movie in the book Exactly now he read the book when he was a kid and inspired him to want to be an astronaut to want to engage in science again”
“Not for our greatest of frontier, no, so, we have the right stuff. (Paul laughs) If you just buy the right stuff, it ain't the right stuff.”
“but that back one lose the right stuff right”