Forget Space Force: Blast Off With America’s First Astronauts in ‘The Right Stuff’
Tags: TV Series, NASA, Space, Technology, Astronauts

National Geographic’s new series is a retelling of the Mercury Seven, and the fierce rivalries that helped propel them into space. The first two of eight episodes premiere on Disney+ on Friday, and it’s a hell of a ride.

By S.C. Stuart

If you’re a space geek looking for escapism during these strange times, Disney+ will debut the first two episodes of The Right Stuff on Friday.

Based on Tom Wolfe’s 1979 book of the same name and produced for National Geographic by Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way and Warner Bros. Television, the eight-part series is a gritty look at America’s first astronauts. It stars Patrick J. Adams as Major John Glenn, in fierce competition with Jake McDorman as Lieutenant Commander Alan Shepard.

The Backstory

In 1959, NASA was looking for a few good men for Project Mercury, the first tests toward human spaceflight. With the Cold War threatening to turn hot, and Russia ahead in the space race, the stakes were high. It felt as if the American Dream itself was at stake.

The seven finalists were all test pilots recruited from the US Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps. These pilots were used to pushing advanced machinery to its breaking point and risking their lives every time they took off.

What NASA needed them to do was far more dangerous. Namely, to sit in a capsule, on top of a Redstone rocket, with 25 tons of ethyl alcohol and liquid oxygen delivering 78,000 pounds of thrust and (eventually) travel 150 miles above Earth and into orbit.

On-Set Visit

In October 2019, PCMag visited The Right Stuff cast and crew on location in Orlando, Florida.

We toured the soundstages transformed into Cold War-era, pre-spaceflight medical and residential dorm facilities, complete with vintage Ivory Soap bars, Shinola Boot Polish, and Wildroot Cream Oil Hair Tonic, for that slicked-back, all-American hero hair.

Patrick J. Adams as Major John Glenn and Colin Donoghue as Gordon Cooper (Credit: National Geographic/Gene Page)

We stood at a safe distance in the construction shop for the Mercury 7 capsule, which, unlike Doctor Who’s TARDIS, was compact and claustrophobia-inducing on the inside. Turbocad software designers plotted out blueprints detailing flight control panels and instrument displays. Production designers accessed Pentagon files to match historically correct paint chip colors. Print layout chiefs, in the prep offices above the sets, meticulously re-created the LIFE magazine spreads featuring the astronauts and their families.

In the afternoon, sitting in Media Village, with radio headsets on, we listened in on the talent, watching them on full-size monitors, as they ran through scenes and did numerous takes. After that, we were escorted into an accurately recreated 1960s NASA Media Briefing Room, complete with metal chairs, ashtrays, the Stars & Stripes, and original NASA insignia design on the wall.

Patrick J. Adams as Major John Glenn (Credit: National Geographic/Gene Page)

It all felt well-crafted, even authentic, except we all had digital recorders and smartphones, and the smoky plumes in the ashtrays came from specially created incense stubs.

In a rapid-fire set of roundtables, we quizzed the actors on creating their roles. Patrick J. Adams (Major John Glenn) told us how he was given access to the John Glenn Archives, housed at The Ohio State University Libraries to do due justice to the man.

John and Annie Glenn host Gordon and Trudy Cooper in The Right Stuff (Credit: National Geographic/Gene Page)

“It was incredible to read his letters from that time,” Adams told PCMag. “I definitely felt the pressure to come in and be the statesman of the group. [The time I spent each day] sitting in the trailer, in hair and makeup, gave me a lot of time to sit and meditate about what I was doing by the time I got to set.”

The actors acknowledged that the drama of the piece is the competition between Glenn and Shepard, but stressed that the heart of the series comes from taking ostensibly “ordinary” men (who happen to be pro test pilots) and making them into myths.

“These guys were in severe competition with each other [but] it was clear that only one of them was going to be the first [into space],” said Jake McDorman, who plays Lieutenant Commander Alan Shepard. “That dream, [well], you kind of get drunk on that feeling.”

In the end, the tension between Glenn and Shepard comes down to temperament, rather than experience or aptitude, as all seven astronauts were evenly matched and cut from similar cloth.

Mercury astronauts greet fans in The Right Stuff. (Credit: National Geographic/Gene Page)

“[But] John Glenn felt that he deserved it, that he’d played the game properly,” said McDorman. “He’d lived his life the proper way, as a good Presbyterian boy, and done all the right things to put him in that chair. Whereas Alan Shepard [who I play] was Mr. Popular. [I think this] makes for a really fascinating competition-and amazing television.”

Unlike The Right Stuff movie from 1983, starring Dennis Quaid and Sam Shepard, which is more of a classic hero’s journey, the Disney+ series shows the real human cost of the extraordinary endeavor.

(Credit: National Geographic/Gene Page)

“There’s a brotherhood between them, as test pilots,” said McDorman. “I think they talked about this in [Tom Wolfe’s] book, but they never mention the people who died. They just talked about flying, and how they wanted to get out there. [And yet] they’re already pushing these planes to the limit and stopping just shy of them blowing up in their face.”

“All these men were highly competitive, and at the top of their field,” Adams agreed. “[But] all seven of them, even though they were going through this unique experience, had never signed up for that level of attention, or scrutiny, or having to be accountable for things in their personal lives. That’s what pitted them against each other.”

Even though we know that Glenn becomes the first human to orbit the Earth on Feb. 20, 1962, showrunner Mark Lafferty (Castle Rock, Halt and Catch Fire) builds in enough suspense as the story unfolds to make it worth watching. And if you want more geek-level detail from behind the scenes, check out real-life NASA astronaut Dr. Mae Jemison, who hosted a (virtual) cast panel during [email protected] 2020 ahead of this Friday’s streaming premiere.