Courage is the Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe Tom Wolfe's novel The Right Stuff, provides an accurate description of the lives of early astronauts and aircraft test pilots in rocket, from their careers before, during and after selection to become astronauts, to their private home lives. Throughout his book, Wolfe refers to "the right stuff" and "this right stuff" without ever saying up front what "the stuff" actually is. I have concluded that throughout the story "the right thing" is simply courage. Personally I would define courage as: the willingness to put yourself in a potentially dangerous situation. It's never easy to put yourself in a dangerous position, this is because our brain is programmed for survival, but there are ways to better equip our brain so that these situations become less dangerous. A couple of these ways rely on our natural instincts and good training. When you have a natural instinct for something, the task becomes easier than for someone who doesn't have the same instinct. There was a good portion of Wolfe's book describing how instinct led Gordon Cooper to be selected into the Mercury Program. It was during the first interview sessions that "NASA psychologists asked candidates about their family life, Cooper was able to perceive the correct answers and describe his family life as fantastic, when in fact they were separated." Cooper's natural person instincts helped him recognize what this line of questioning was about, kept him in the running for an astronaut position - which he later received - and he was able to reconcile with his wife in a way that they seemed like a model family. Throughout his book, Wolfe describes the training these men... middle of paper... in flight." So, after reading stories of astronauts, their families, and test pilots, I take Tom's phrase Wolfe "The Right Stuff" for means courage gained from natural instinct and training. Without any of these special traits, I believe finding a person flying strapped to a rocket in the skies would have been very difficult for the military and NASA elements. that make the difference between life and death when a person finds himself in a dangerous situation BIBLIOGRAPHY Wolfe, Tom The Right Stuff New York, NY: Bantam Books, 2001. Wolfe's novel describes the early years of the age of flight. with manned rocket. Tells stories of legends like Chuck Yeager, Allen Shepard, Neil Armstrong and Gordon Cooper These stories tell their stories, from screening to become astronauts to being record-breaking test pilots.