The Right Stuff

by Tom Wolfe

By the next morning the seven Mercury astronauts were national heroes. It happened just like that. Even though so far they had done nothing more than show up for a press conference, they were known as the seven bravest men in America. They woke up to find astonishing acclaim all over the press. There it was, in the more sophisticated columns as well as in the tabloids and on television. Even James Reston of The New York Times had been so profoundly moved by the press conference and the sight of the seven brave men that his heart, he confessed, now beat a little faster. “What made them so exciting,” he wrote, “was not that they said anything new but that they said all the old things with such fierce convictions … They spoke of ‘duty’ and ‘faith’ and ‘country’ like Walt Whitman’s pioneers … This is a pretty cynical town, but nobody went away from these young men scoffing at their courage and idealism.”