The Right Stuff

VI. On the Balcony

Which air force base was the experimental facility of the old National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics?

Langley AFB in Virginia

The father of this Mercury Seven astronaut was a fireman for the B&O Railroad.John Glenn

This Mercury Seven astronaut was from Shawnee, Oklahoma. Gordon Cooper

What is the name of the rocket that became the "reliable workhorse" for Project Mercury?Redstone

Cape Canaveral, Florida, May 16, 1958

Who was the head of the new Space Task Group?Robert GIlruth

official portrait while he was serving as Director of the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas (now Johnson Space Center)

Who was the NASA deputy administrator from 1958 until his death?Hugh Dryden

20 October 1959

What is the name of the NASA public affairs officer who had run the press conference for the Mercury Seven astronauts?

Walter Bonney

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/147556main_presscon.pdf

The father of this Mercury Seven astronaut had been a colonel in the old Army Air Force and a career officer.

Gordon Cooper

Harry Truman had once considered making this Washington tax lawyer head of the Internal Revenue Service. What is this man’s name?

Leo DeOrsey

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,864827,00.html

Press: The Big StoryMonday, Aug. 24, 1959

Impression of the Mercury Seven astronauts at the press conference

“… seven patriotic God-fearing small-town Protestant family men with excellent backing on the home front.”

(page 111)

Who was Life’s founder and “boss of bosses”?Henry Luce

This thirty-two year old Mercury Seven astronaut was the youngest of the seven. Gordon Cooper

This Mercury Seven astronaut was raised on a farm in western Wisconsin, up near the town of Sparta and the Elroy Sparta State Park Trail.

Deke Slayton

Army Creole

“… a language in which there were about ten nouns, five verbs, and one adjective, or participle, or whatever it was called.”

(page 112)

This Mercury Seven astronaut met his wife, Trudy, at Hickam Field after he had enrolled in the U’ of Hawaii.

Gordon Cooper

Where did John Glenn grow up?New Concord, OH

Where was the Atlas rocket being built?At Convair in San Diego

Where was the capsule for Project Mercury being built?At the McDonnell factory in St. Louis

Which air force base became the headquarters for NASA’s Space Task Group for Project Mercury?Langley AFB

“Well… do good work!”

“… because it’s my ass that’ll be sitting on your freaking rocket.”(page 116)