The Right Stuff

I. The Angels

According to the author, which celebrity did Jane Conrad resemble? Jean Simmons

something

“…was part of the official Wife Lingo for tiptoeing blindfolded around the subject .”

(page 1)

Where did Jane Conrad attend college?Bryn Mawr

Where did Pete Conrad attend college?Princeton

Where did Jane meet Pete?At a debutante’s party at the Gulph Mills Club in Philadelphia

He was thrown out stealing second base.

“… the way they talked about it, with such breezy, slangy terminology, was the same way they talked about sports.”

(page 3)

What was Charles Conrad’s nickname?The Hickory Kid

When did Jane and Pete marry?Two days after Pete graduated from Princeton

In 1955, where were Jane and Pete living?Jacksonville, Florida

Burned beyond recognition

“… quite an artful euphemism to describe a human body that now looked like an enormous foul that has burned up in a stove…”

(page 3)

Pete’s and Jane’s first child, born in 1954, is named…?Peter

Jane and Pete built their brick house, which they painted white and the windows black. How much did it cost?

Eleven thousand dollars

Bud Jennings crashed into the swamp in what type of plane?an SNJ (North American T-6 Texan)

Friend of Widows and Orphans

Self explanatory (page 4)

Pete was transferred from Jacksonville to which naval air station? The Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland

Aerial view of the hangars in the late 1940s

Why was Pete transferred to Pax River?To enter the Navy’s new test-pilot school

What was the name of the community that Jane and Pete lived in at Pax River?North Town Creek

What was Group 20?The name of Pete’s flight test class

Pushing the outside of the envelope

Probing the outer limits of a particular aircraft’s performance (page 8)

What was Al Bean’s nickname? Beano

What nickname did Pete give to Jim Lovell?Shaky

How did Ted Whelan die?He fell like a rock from 8,100 feet when his parachute failed.