The Right Stuffby Tom Wolfe

"The Right Stuff" is a non-fiction book by Tom Wolfe, first published in 1979. The book is a chronicle of the United States' first manned space program, Project Mercury, and the seven men who were selected as the first American astronauts. The book covers the period from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, and it explores the personal lives and motivations of the astronauts, as well as the political and technological context of the space race. The book was a bestseller and won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1979. It was later adapted into a movie directed by Philip Kaufman in 1983.