John Herschel Glenn, Jr. (born July 18, 1921) is a former United States Marine Corps pilot, astronaut, and United States senator who was the first American to orbit the Earth and the third American in space. Glenn was combat aviator in the Marine Corps and one of the seven elite US military test pilots to be selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (more commonly referred to as "NASA") to test fly and operate the experimental Mercury spacecraft outside of the mesosphere at altitudes above 115 miles (185 km) and at speeds exceeding 5,000 miles per hour (8,000 km/h) to become the first officially recognized American (US) astronauts. He flew the Friendship 7 mission on February 20, 1962. In 1965, Glenn retired from the military and resigned from NASA so he could be eligible to stand for election to public office. As a member of the Democratic Party he was elected to represent Ohio in the United States Senate from 1974 to 1999.
Glenn received a Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. He was inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1990. On October 29, 1998, he became the oldest person to fly in space, and the only one to fly in both the Mercury and Space Shuttle programs, when at age 77, he flew on Discovery (STS-95). As of 2012, Glenn and M. Scott Carpenter are the last living members of the Mercury Seven.
Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years (1962–81). During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll. Although he reported many events from 1937 to 1981, including bombing in World War II, the Nuremberg trials, combat in the Vietnam War,Watergate, the Iran Hostage Crisis, and the murders of President John F. Kennedy, civil rights pioneer Martin Luther King, Jr., and The Beatles musician John Lennon, he was known for extensive TV coverage of the U.S. space program, from Project Mercury to the Moon landings to the Space Shuttle. He was the only non-NASA recipient of a Moon-rock award. Cronkite is well known for his departing catchphrase "And that's the way it is," followed by the date on which the appearance is aired.
Cronkite was born in Saint Joseph, Missouri, the son of Helen Lena (née Fritsche, August 1892 - November 1993), and Dr. Walter Leland Cronkite (September 1893 - May 1973), a dentist. He had remote Dutch ancestry on his father's side, the family surname originally being Krankheyt.
Howard Morton Metzenbaum (June 4, 1917 – March 12, 2008) was an American politician who served for almost 20 years as a Democratic member of the U.S. Senate from Ohio (1974, 1976–1995). He also served in the Ohio House of Representatives and Senate from 1943 to 1951.
Metzenbaum was born in Cleveland, to a poor Jewish family, the son of Anna (née Klafter) and Charles I. Metzenbaum. He graduated from Ohio State University, receiving a bachelor's degree in 1939 and a law degree in 1941. During the 1940s, he practiced law in Cleveland, mostly for large labor unions, first the Communications Workers of America and then the International Association of Machinists.
Metzenbaum served in the Ohio House of Representatives from 1943 to 1947. He then served in the Ohio Senate from 1947 to 1951. In 1958, he was the campaign manager for U.S. Senator Stephen M. Young, who narrowly unseated Republican Senator John Bricker, the Republican Party's nominee for Vice President in 1944, in a major upset.
Metzenbaum became independently wealthy through investments, particularly in real estate near what became the Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, which Metzenbaum and his partner, Alva "Ted" Bonda, correctly envisioned would make for extremely profitable, 24-hour, well-lit parking lots. The business expanded to become APCOA, the world's largest parking lot company. By 1970 he had sold his interest in his airport parking lot company for $20 million. In the early 1970s, Metzenbaum co-owned the Sun Newspapers chain of weeklies in the Cleveland suburbs. Bonda and Metzenbaum also started one of the country's first car-rental companies, now Avis.
Edward Allen "Ed" Harris (born November 28, 1950) is an American actor, writer, and director, known for his performances in Appaloosa, The Rock, The Abyss, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, A History of Violence, The Truman Show, and The Hours. Harris has also narrated commercials for The Home Depot and other companies. He is a three-time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, along with an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination for the title role in Pollock.
Harris was born in Englewood Hospital, and raised in Tenafly, the son of Margaret, a travel agent, and Robert L. Harris, who sang with the Fred Waring chorus and worked at the bookstore of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has an older brother, Robert, and a younger brother, Spencer. His parents were originally from Oklahoma. Harris was raised in a middle-class Presbyterian family. He graduated from Tenafly High School in 1969, where he played on the football team, serving as the team's captain in his senior year. He was a star athlete in high school, and competed in athletics at Columbia University in 1969. Two years later his family moved to New Mexico, and he followed, after having discovered his interest in acting in various theater plays. He enrolled at the University of Oklahoma to study drama. After several successful roles in the local theater, he moved to Los Angeles, and enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts.
Plot
The making of the motion picture "The Right Stuff", focusing on the visual effects and other post-production, the premiere and disappointing box-office (caused by misidentification with John Glenn's presidential campaign), and the film's enduring legacy.
Keywords: behind-the-scenes, making-of, number-in-title
Plot
Tom Wolfe's book on the history of the U.S. Space program reads like a novel, and the film has that same fictional quality. It covers the breaking of the sound barrier by Chuck Yeager to the Mercury 7 astronauts, showing that no one had a clue how to run a space program or how to select people to be in it. Thrilling, funny, charming and electrifying all at once.
Keywords: 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, adultery, aerospace-film, aircraft-carrier, airplane-accident, astronaut, australian-aboriginal, aviation
By flying higher and faster than any other man had ever dared before, Chuck Yeager set the pace for a new breed of hero. Those that had just one thing in common...THE RIGHT STUFF.
How the future began.
America was looking for a hero who had what it takes to become a legend. America found seven of them.
[first lines]::Narrator: There was a demon that lived in the air. They said whoever challenged him would die. Their controls would freeze up, their planes would buffet wildly, and they would disintegrate. The demon lived at Mach 1 on the meter, seven hundred and fifty miles an hour, where the air could no longer move out of the way. He lived behind a barrier through which they said no man could ever pass. They called it the sound barrier.
[about Yeager's bruised ribs]::Jack Ridley: How bad did you ding 'em?::Chuck Yeager: Well, you might say as I broke a couple of the sons-o'-bitches.
[repeated lines]::Chuck Yeager: Hey, Ridley, ya got any Beeman's?::Jack Ridley: Yeah, I think I got me a stick.::Chuck Yeager: Loan me some, will ya? I'll pay ya back later.::Jack Ridley: Fair enough.
Gordon Cooper: You boys know what makes this bird go up? FUNDING makes this bird go up.::Gus Grissom: He's right. No bucks, no Buck Rogers.
Chuck Yeager: Hey, Ridley, make another note here, would ya? Must be something wrong with this ol' Mach meter. Jumped plumb off the scale. Gone kinda screwy on me.::Jack Ridley: You go ahead and bust it, we'll fix it. Personally, I think you're seein' things.::Chuck Yeager: Yeah, could be. But I'm still goin' upstairs like a bat outta hell.
Chuck Yeager: I'm a fearless man, but I'm scared to death of you.::Glennis Yeager: Oh no you're not. But you oughta be.
Alan Shepard: Dear Lord, please don't let me fuck up.::Gordon Cooper: I didn't quite copy that. Say again, please.::Alan Shepard: I said everything's A-OK.
Pancho Barnes: What are you two rookies gonna have?::Gordon Cooper: Rookies? Now hold on, sis. You are looking at a whole new ballgame here now. In fact, in a couple of years, I bet you're even gonna immortalize us by putting our pictures up there on your wall. [unwittingly referring to the dead pilot memorial over the bar] What? I say somethin' wrong here?::Pancho Barnes: I tell you, we got two categories of pilots around here. We got your prime pilots that get all the hot planes, and we got your pud-knockers who dream about getting the hot planes. Now what are you two pud-knockers gonna have? Huh?
Chief Scientist: I agree with those who say we could launch a pod.::Lyndon Johnson: A pot?::Chief Scientist: A POD - a, uh, capsule. Now, we would be in full control of zis pod. It vill go up like a cannonball, and come down like, uh, a cannonball, splashing down into ze water, the ocean, vith a parachute to spare the life of the specimen inside.::Lyndon Johnson: Spaceman?::Chief Scientist: SPE-CI-MEN.::Lyndon Johnson: Well, what kind of spe-ci-men?::Chief Scientist: A tough one. Responsive to orders. I had in mind a jimp.::Lyndon Johnson: JIMP? Well what the HELL is a jimp?::Chief Scientist: A jimp. A-a-a jimpanzee, Senator. An ape.
Game Show MC: Major, Eddie here has a little problem with his girlfriend. Did you ever have a problem like that when you were 10?::John Glenn: Yes, I did, Bob. I liked a girl in my class, but all the other guys liked her too and she didn't pay any attention. But, I kept after her, Eddie.::Game Show MC: Did you finally get her to notice you?::John Glenn: Yes, I did. In fact, I finally got her to marry me.
You are my light you are my night sky
You're the last wind of the day
You are what's right in my lifetime
You're the last wind of the day
You are the art in my paintings
You are the poet of my ways
You are the earth I am the sunshine
You're the last wind of the day
You are the time, you're my night sky
You're the last wind of the day
You are the sea, I am your night dream
You're the last wind of the day
You are the meadows in my sunshine
You are the color of my blue
You are the breath that I breathe now
You're the essence of the truth
You are the fragrance of the flowers
You are the answer to my ways
You are the air I am the mountains