The Right Stuff Season 1

An adaptation of Tom Wolfe's best-seller that recounts the pioneering chapter of the historic U.S. space race. The Right Stuff takes a clear-eyed, non-nostalgic look at the lives of these ambitious astronauts and their families, who became instant celebrities in a competition that would either kill them or make them immortal. The first season, which uses the book as its starting point, takes place at the height of the Cold War in 1958, when the Soviets are dominating the space race. The public is in fear of a nation in decline, so the U.S. government conceives of a solution - NASA's Project Mercury - creating the country's premier astronauts from a handful of the military's adrenaline-junkie test pilots. Seven individuals, known as the Mercury Seven, are plucked from obscurity and soon forged into heroes long before they have achieved a single heroic act. Within the heart of this historic drama that's populated by deeply human characters, two archrivals - John Glenn and Alan Shepard - jockey to be the first in space.