MovieChat Forums > The Astronaut Wives Club (2015) Discussion > Interesting Character Introductions

Interesting Character Introductions

posted 10 years ago by johnston.scot
3 replies | jump to latest

It's kind of interesting that we got all seven of the Mercury astronauts presented fairly completely as definite characters, along with all their wives, but - I think - we haven't yet even seen a glimpse of any later astronaut. Of course, there are a lot of them - in the show's timeline, we're already up to 30, since "The Fourteen" were named in October '63 ... so it's not like many are going to fit, and the show is supposed to be about the wives anyway.

I'm not sure how they chose the three wives of The New Nine who've been made characters on the show. Marilyn See is going to make dramatic sense shortly, though you'd think Mrs. White should also pop up - of course, they already have Betty, and maybe they'll be more interested in Martha Chafee once she shows up. But why Borman and Conrad? Pete Conrad makes an entertaining and colorful characters, but we're not seeing him. Maybe Mrs. Conrad got in just to drop that Seven Sister / Princeton reference on Jo Schirra's social aspirations.

[–] wab-3 10 years ago

Conrad was a very colorful and funny guy, but I don't recall that his marriage had much drama in it. They may need his wife as a character for the socialite aspect, plus just because Pete was such a big presence in Gemini and Apollo.

Borman and his wife definitely make sense because he had a big impact due to being a really management-oriented guy and his handling of the Apollo fire investigation had major ramifications. With regard to his wife, we've already seen her clashing with the Mercury wives and, of course, the pressure drives her into becoming a major alcoholic, which was one reason why Borman ended up leaving the Apollo program early.

One major absence is Neal Armstrong, because he was actually touted as being the first civilian astronaut. His presence was part of what was a conscious attempt on the part of NASA to de-militarize the astronaut program. That's why the accusation they wrote in for Trudy Cooper, that NASA was trying to keep the astronaut program a military-only thing rang so false to me. The reverse was true. NASA didn't want to have anything to do with the Air Force's manned space programs and had a role in getting Dyna-Soar and the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (both USAF programs) killed.

Also, they have to start working in "Dr. Rendezvous" soon and all the hype about him being one of the first "scientists" recruited to be an astronaut.

[–] PeaceRocks 10 years ago

"Dr. Rendezvous".... That's actually fascinating and something I'd never heard before. I'm ignoring the 'soap' aspects of this show and I am enjoying the perspective of women's history - which I started a different thread about - but apparently, there are some other interesting details about the NASA men that could be explored as well within the show.

"Stay tuned" I guess. 

[–] johnston.scot 10 years ago

On Conrad, one thing that occurred to me after the above post is that he will shortly be together with Gordon Cooper on the third Gemini mission. Since the Coopers are already pretty central, maybe they'll go with some kind of exploration of how two wives deal with each other while their husbands are on a joint mission.