Character Analysis
(Avoiding Spoilers)
Overview... a roguish astronaut on Project Mercury. Cooper may be the youngest of the seven test pilots chosen for NASA’s first attempt at manned space flight, but he’s also the most self-assured. Between his beautiful wife, adorable kids, and shiny red convertible, Cooper is living the 1950s American dream. Once he and his fellow astronauts are thrust into the spotlight, Cooper loves nothing more than turning on the charm and winning over the media.
Personality... confident, cocky, and ambitious. Cooper was only a “pudkocker” (i.e lower-level) pilot back at Edwards Air Force Base, but he never doubted his ability to fly an aircraft. He can be blockheaded when it comes to other people’s emotions – particularly his wife’s – but he’s got enough charisma to win over just about anyone. He likes to brag, “Whose the best pilot you ever saw? You’re looking at him!”
Get to Know him in...
-
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.
-
From "America's nerviest journalist" (Newsweek)--a breath-taking epic, a magnificent adventure story, and an investigation into the true heroism and courage of the first Americans to conquer space. "Tom Wolfe at his very best" (The New York Times Book Review) Millions of words have poured forth about man's trip to the moon, but until now few people have had a sense of the most engrossing side of the adventure; namely, what went on in the minds of the astronauts themselves - in space, on the moon, and even during certain odysseys on earth. It is this, the inner life of the astronauts, that Tom Wolfe describes with his almost uncanny empathetic powers, that made The Right Stuff a classic.
