Chapter 8, "The Thrones" Summary

The astronauts aren't the only members of the Mercury program with huge egos. The engineers designing the Mercury program have egos to match any fighter-jock and they regard the astronauts as test subjects. The invention of the high-speed electronic computer has made space flight possible, and the engineers regard the astronaut as a "redundant component," someone there to do jobs manually if the automatic system breaks down. Training should not be like flight training, where pilots are taught how to take certain actions. It should be a "de-conditioning," in which they will be go through simulations until the actual launch has no novelty. This is exactly the reason the NASA selection committee was afraid no test pilots would be interested. They had considered training twelve pilots in case half resigned when they realized how passive the job...