The Right Stuff is a 1979 book by
Tom Wolfe about the pilots engaged in U.S. postwar experiments with experimental rocket-powered, high-speed aircraft as well as documenting the stories of the first
Project Mercury astronauts selected for the
NASA space program.
The Right Stuff is based on extensive research by Wolfe, who interviewed
test pilots, the astronauts and their wives, among others. The story contrasts the "
Mercury Seven" and their families with test pilots such as
Chuck Yeager, who was considered by many contemporaries as the best of them all, but who was never selected as an astronaut.