The Right Stuff

Chapter 7 moves the setting of The Right Stuff to Cape Canaveral, Florida, where the first American astronaut will be launched into space.

Wolfe describes the Cape as a barren, “Low Rent” successor to the legendary Edwards Air Force Base in California. Like that area of the Mojave Desert, the Cape is “one of those bleached, sandy, bare-boned stretches where the land that any sane man would want runs out […] and the government takes it over for the testing of hot and dangerous machines” (128). Though still based at Langley in Virginia, the Seven begin to visit the Cape with increasing frequency to receive briefings on the rocket launch site and practice with a model of the space capsule. Like Edwards, the Cape serves as “a paradise of […] Drinking & Driving and Driving & the rest” for the astronauts while away from their wives and families (128).

This renaissance of the Edwards cowboy lifestyle precipitates a rift among the Seven. Gus Grissom and Gordon Cooper become enamored with pushing the hottest and fastest cars on the racetrack that is the solid, flat surface of Cocoa Beach (130-31); hard drinking, partying, and infidelity occur (131-34). As national public figures, the pious