The Right Stuff
Location
McWhorter 110
Presentation Type
Event
Start Date
10-9-2019 6:30 PM
Description
Before there was Apollo, there was Gemini, and before there was Gemini there was Mercury, the first manned spaceflight missions by the US. Kaufman’s 1983 film, adapted from Tom Wolfe’s 1979 book, takes the story of how the US launched itself into the future back to its beginning with test pilots, most notably Chuck Yeager, before taking us through the rigorous, sometimes humorous but always potentially dangerous process of selecting the first “astronauts.” In the process of telling their story, the film captures the world of the late 1950s, the world of the Cold War and an optimistic post-war American shaken to its core by the success of the Soviet space program and its successful launching of Sputnik in 1957 and its 1961 coup of sending Yuri Gagarin into space, and bringing him home alive. Discussion to follow.
Recommended Citation
Hobson, Eric, "The Right Stuff" (2019). Humanities Symposium. 6.
https://repository.belmont.edu/humanities_symposium/2019/ff2019/6
The Right Stuff
McWhorter 110
Before there was Apollo, there was Gemini, and before there was Gemini there was Mercury, the first manned spaceflight missions by the US. Kaufman’s 1983 film, adapted from Tom Wolfe’s 1979 book, takes the story of how the US launched itself into the future back to its beginning with test pilots, most notably Chuck Yeager, before taking us through the rigorous, sometimes humorous but always potentially dangerous process of selecting the first “astronauts.” In the process of telling their story, the film captures the world of the late 1950s, the world of the Cold War and an optimistic post-war American shaken to its core by the success of the Soviet space program and its successful launching of Sputnik in 1957 and its 1961 coup of sending Yuri Gagarin into space, and bringing him home alive. Discussion to follow.
Comments
Convocation Credit: Society and the Arts & Sciences