'The Right Stuff' Disney Plus series revisits historic Mercury 7 flight

CHICAGO (WLS) -- "The Right Stuff" was a best-selling book, a blockbuster movie, and now it's a series you can stream starting Friday.

It's 1959, tensions were mounting in the Cold War, and the Soviets were dominating space exploration. The Mercury 7, the best pilots in America, were challenged with carrying the hopes of the nation into the vast unknown.

"I think when you risk your life in order to accomplish a goal that could better the situation here on earth it's pretty heroic," said Patrick J. Adams who plays John Glenn.

"To all of a sudden be as famous as the Beatles and expected to be an iconic example of Americana and values and family men, when these guys, for most of them aside from John Glenn, were hard drinking fighter jocks that were never expected to be under such scrutiny and a microscope," said Jake McDorman, who plays Alan Shepard.

"These guys and their wives had the sort of emotional experience that dad might not come home, but the difference in this show is they suffered in silence with those emotions now the spotlight is on them," said Michael Trotter, plays Gus Grissom.

"It does show what we can accomplish when we all work together focused on one kind of outcome, there's a lot of seemingly insurmountable challenges socially and otherwise going on right now, and in terms of when we all came together to get one thing done," Adams said.

"The Right Stuff" is eight episodes about the men with out of this world dreams that came true with their humanity and their superhuman skills and determination.

It starts streaming on Disney Plus Friday.

Disney is the parent company of ABC 7.