Even if not everything in the movie or book, The Right Stuff, is completely true, I think most Americans know the story about the Mercury Seven. Back when the US was trying to catch up to the Soviet Union, military test pilots were the first astronauts because they were used to danger plus many were veterans from WWII and/or the Korean War. Today our astronauts come from all walks of life but most have be engineers or scientists capable of juggling multiple jobs. Can’t specialize in one thing when there isn’t any room for error on a rocket or orbiting around in the ISS.
NASA and America did a pretty good job in the end. From just selecting seven men to be launched into space to landing on the moon successfully in a mere decade.