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The creepy old guy at the bar Pancho’s is the real Chuck Yeager

The reason they focused on Chuck Yeager is because the movie is called The Right Stuff. And he was probably America's best test pilot. He totally had The Right Stuff. But, unfortunately, NASA wanted all the astronauts to have a college degree. He didn't have one. Ironically enough, he trained most of the astronauts.

John Glen entered politics and became a 4 term senator, the most prestigious chamber of the U.S. Congress. In 1998 John Glen returned to space again in the shuttle Discovery to set a record as the oldest man ever to go to space. He was the last survivor of the original 7 American astronauts.

The truth is, German engineers and technicians were critical to the early successes of the American space program. Chief among them was Werner Von Braun. As Germany was losing the war, most of the German rocket program preferred to surrender to Allied armies. The Soviets claimed fewer.

When I was a kid I wanted to be Chuck Yeager in the worst way... I was obsessed with airplanes and spaceships (I still am to some degree)... I remember so many years of reading all I could, turning a computer into a flight sim, attempting to build my own plane in the backyard. Unfortunately my first "flight" was not entirely successful. On flying there's a quote from sci/fi comedy writer Douglas Adams that I love, "flying," he says, "is throwing yourself down at the ground and missing." Well, let's just say I nailed the first part of that. It's a wonder I lived past 10 years old with some of crazy stuff I used to do.

This movie does Gus Grissom dirty. He didn’t panic and the hatch really did just blow.

Gordo was the greatest pilot anyone ever saw.. His electric systems failed, had to fly by wire on reentry.. He used a piece of chalk and his capsule window to work out his reentry angle.. Then splashed down 3.5 miles from the rescue carrier..

Chuck Yeager's crash at the end is VERY under represented. He didn't just walk away with a few scratches. He actually suffered severe burns to his head and neck when the ejection seat hit his helmet and ignited the oxygen in his pressure suit.

My father met Chuck Yeager My father was a civil service employee at Seymour Johnson AFB in Goldsboro North Carolina. While he was working at the steam heating plant Chuck Yeager drove up and wanted a tour of the plant. Daddy took him on a tour. At the time they were using coal to heat the boilers.Daddy mentioned that there was coal dust but Chuck Yeager didn't mind. At the time Chuck Yeager was commander of the 4th Fighter Group

Creepy old guy was Yeager himself LOL! He did a cameo for the movie.

Chuck Yeager ‘s contribution to this film and the story was he broke the sound barrier which opened the door to the possibilities that space travel is feasible. Without him being the true pioneer who knows how the future would have turned out. We owe Brigadier General Chuck Yeager EVERYTHING!

Every Mercury astronaut had a characteristic injury when they "blew the hatch". Gus did not have that injury and it was later reasoned that the static electricity from the chopper blew the hatch when they first touched the capsule. Knew a marine who served in Vietnam who got a two inch burn around his hand grabbing a tether during an equipment delivery from a Huey.

There is a 12 part HBO series called "From the Earth to the Moon", produced by Tom Hanks, that originally aired in 1998 that is mostly about Project Apollo, the American moon landing project. It is well worth watching.

Pancho Barnes - the woman running the diner - is an aviation legend in her own right. You should read up on her.

The movie didn't really make it clear that the woman who ran the bar was Pancho Barnes, who at one time held the women's world air speed record and was quite a hot shot when she was young. That's why she is accepted by the pilots.

When Yeager broke his ribs he had them taped up by a veterinarian so the flight doctors wouldn't find out.

Wonderful reaction. The film doesn't mention the Gordon Cooper actually controlled his disabled capsule manually from orbit to a splashdown only 6km from the recovery ship.

11:30

Chuck Yeagers story was that it wasn't just the guys that went into space that contributed to the success of the American space program. He and the other test pilots in the program pushed the technology and skills that they needed to the utmost level achievable at that time and succeeded at something that few have ever matched.