Your opinion on the image of the "Space Cowboy"?

[G'th]

So I binge watched the entirety of the "From the Earth to the Moon" series tonight (alongside The Right Stuff at the start. Basically to get most of Mercury through Apollo), and something that got me thinking was the image of the "Space Cowboy", and how there's quite a lot of people who, for lack of a better description, despise the type and the image itself.

I personally like the idea. Aside from the obvious PR benefits having these kinds of people going into space, it just seems to me like these were the sort of people that you'd want doing things that weren't as simple as just sitting in low earth orbit. The way they behave, in popular culture and in real life, just seems ideal for the situation.

[Nibb31]

I'm not sure what you mean with "Space Cowboy", but your reference to the early US astronauts doesn't fit at all with that description. They were highly-disciplined and highly trained military test pilots, not cowboys.

[Motokid600]

The Right Stuff... A great movie, but I dont think it accurately depicted the Mercury Astronauts. For instance I've always wondered why in the movie they made it out as if Gus Grissom had a panic attack. Was.. that actually the case?

[Bill Phil]

A cowboy is an invented stereotype.

[vger]

From what I knew of Apollo 12, it sort of fit the bill. Not that this really had any impact on their competence though. They were just more... colorful?

[Bill Phil]

Do you mean grabbing stuff on orbit, OP?

[sgt_flyer]

From the words of alexis castle : there are no cows in space

Besides, i doubt they'll want to goof around too much when sometimes a few milimeters separate you from hard vacuum (and they did train for those missions for quite a long time - most of the 'cowboys' elements wouldhave been filtered out during selection process and training (after all, they were basically using extremely expensive machines - everyone would do whatever it takes for the mission to succeed - and when an emergency occurs in spacecrafts, a huge bunch of people scratch their heads to try solving the problem

Edited April 3, 2015 by sgt_flyer