‘Real Right Stuff’ with special historical photos, film, coming in Nov. on Disney+

Disney+ will stream a companion piece to the scripted series “The Right Stuff”  giving us a look at the nation’s first astronauts with the help of never-before-seen research, movies and still photos.

“The Real Right Stuff,” premiering Nov. 20, tells the true story of the original Mercury 7 using hundreds of hours of archival film and radio broadcasts, interviews, home movies and other rare and never-before-seen material to catapult viewers back to the late 1950s.

The two-hour documentary, from National Geographic, complements the Disney+ original scripted series “The Right Stuff” which will premiere its season finale on the same day.

Directed and produced by Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Tom Jennings (“Apollo: Missions to the Moon,” “Challenger Disaster: Lost Tapes”) the special is free of modern-day narration and interviews, the special uses Jennings’ signature style to give viewers unparalleled access to the early days of the space race.

“The Real Right Stuff” features:

• Never-before-seen footage and newly synced audio – Shown for the first time are the tense moments that immediately followed the Mercury-Redstone 4 flight piloted by Virgil “Gus” Grissom.
• Rare early radio and video recordings – Viewers experience the historic announcement of the Mercury 7 astronauts from a wide array of news outlets, all jockeying to cover America’s first space team and witness an internal government recording that outlines the formation of NASA from its predecessor, The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.
• Never-before-seen research materials from Tom Wolfe – Hear Wolfe speak with Rene Carpenter, wife of Mercury 7 astronaut Scott Carpenter, and see intimate handwritten notes compiled for Wolfe’s seminal book, “The Right Stuff.”
• Newly digitized John Glenn home movies – From the archives of The Ohio State University, John Glenn’s rare personal family moments are captured on 8 mm and 16 mm film.
• Exclusive unseen and rare photographs – For the first time, behind-the-scenes photographs from the infamous LIFE Magazine issue are shared, providing a glimpse into the home lives of the Mercury 7 astronauts. Rare photos from National Geographic’s top photographers who covered the Mercury space program are also revealed.