Yeager’s Disqualification Didn’t Bother Him
In 2019 Forbes magazine reporter Jim Clash asked Yeager if he had any regrets about not being selected for the NASA astronaut program. Yeager, contemplating the position of the Mercury crew in the early years, responded with the honesty of a pilot who broke records – and the sound barrier. “The [Mercury] guys didn’t have a hell of a lot of control, and that to me isn’t flying. I wasn’t interested.” Yeager was known for being unsentimental and stoic. When Frank Borman, training at Edwards Air Force Base in the early 1960s, told his commander Yeager that he received word of being selected for NASA’s astronaut corps, the stoic Yeager was silent for a moment, then quipped, “Well, Borman, you can kiss your Air Force career goodbye.”