The Right Stuff

by Tom Wolfe

They put them in the simulator for endless hours and endless days of on-cue manual-task training. Since the chimpanzee would not be wearing a pressure suit in flight, he was put inside a pressurized cubicle, which in turn would be placed in the Mercury capsule. The monkey’s instrument panel was inside the inner cubicle. Therein, day by day, month by month, the monkey learned to operate certain switches in different sequences when cued by flashing lights. If he did the job incorrectly, he received an electric shock. If he did it correctly, he received banana-flavored pellets, plus some attaboys and nuzzles from the vets. Gradually the beasts were worn down. They were tractable now. The operant conditioning was taking place. A life of avoiding the blue bolts and gratefully accepting the attaboys and pellets had become the better part of valor. Rebellion had proved to be a dead end.