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The Right Stuff: America's first astronauts take one giant leap in first trailer for Disney+ series
Explore the incredible true story of America's very first astronauts with the inspirational first trailer for Disney+ and National Geographic's adaptation of The Right Stuff. Based on Tom Wolfe's 1979 non-fiction book of the same name (you may recall that it spawned a movie version in 1983), the upcoming TV series takes place in the late 1950s and centers on the Mercury 7. This famous group of military test pilots (along with their brave wives) paved the way for the United States to win the Cold War's heated Space Race with the Apollo 11 moon landing in the summer of 1969.
While we got our first look at the project (premiering in October) during Comic-Con@Home last month, the official trailer does a nice job of summarizing the personal and scientific tribulations of NASA's ambitious mission to reach the stars. Showrun by Mark Lafferty (Castle Rock, Halt and Catch Fire), The Right Stuff is executive-produced by Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way.
Take a look at the new footage below:
The Mercury 7 are played by:
Patrick J. Adams (Major John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth), Jake McDorman (Lieutenant Commander Alan Shepard, the first American in space), Colin O’Donoghue (Captain Gordo Cooper, the youngest of the group), Aaron Staton (Wally Schirra, the only astronaut to have taken part in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs), James Lafferty (Scott Carpenter, who was also known as "The Poet" among his fellow astronauts), Micah Stock (Deke Slayton, who would go on to become NASA's first Chief of the Astronaut Office), and Michael Trotter (Gus Grissom, the second American in space).
Nora Zehetner (Annie Glenn), Shannon Lucio (Louise Shepard), and Eloise Mumford (Trudy Cooper) co-star as some of the astronauts' wives, while Patrick Fischler and Eric Ladin portray NASA scientists Bob Gilruth and Chris Kraft, respectively.
"It seems as though, in our country, that we've lost our step a little bit in terms of that ability to come together to affect change," Mark Lafferty said during the show's Comic-Con@Home panel. "I think any story that can remind us that that's one of our defining characteristics is what other countries look to us for. From our Constitution on forward, we do big stuff here."
The Right Stuff blasts off on Oct. 9.
