Why wasn't Chuck Yeager considered for the Mercury Program?

It may have been mentioned in the Tom Wolfe book but I've forgotten. Yeager was in the same age group as the Mercury seven. He even outlived all of them.

 

Got this off the net...

"Chuck Yeager was a legendary U.S. Air Force test pilot and the first person to break the sound barrier. He never earned a college degree, although he did finish one year at the Air War College. This made him ineligible for the Mercury program."

Others have said he was a pilot and Astronauting was an engineers job...

Bob Meyers -

But my recollection is that basically there was a widely-held opinion within the test pilot community - of which Yeager was obvious one of the premier members - that the astronauts wouldn’t really be doing much that could be called “piloting.” And, of course, as it turned out they were in large part correct, at least as far as the Mercury project went. It wasn’t quite as bad as being “spam in a can,” as one popular perjorative remark said, but on the Mercury flights the astronaut was primarily a test subject without much in the way of actual “flying” to do. There were probably a fair number of test pilots and other highly qualified potential candidates who simply didn’t try for the program for this reason, and while they might have been superb additions to these programs, no one was forcing anyone to sign up if they didn’t want to volunteer. Yeager also failed to meet one of the original selection criteria - he didn’t have a college degree. But for whatever reason, it seems that he never seriously pursued selection into the astronaut corps.

 

One of the seven also didn't have a degree at the time of selection but he eventually got one. Yes, I recall the Wolfe book saying both pilots and admins being lukewarm about the program's need for flying skills. But still, test pilots saw Mercury as a possible leg up and to not make the grade would cause one to be "left behind", which is any professional's worst fear.

The Wiki said aside from military pilots, the program also considered submariners and athletic types like mountaineers. But limiting the choice to military pilots made things a lot easier in terms of testing, security, and chain of command.

 

Remembering that NASA is a civilian organisation - I'm taking that to mean the military people become civilians for their Astronaut missions..?

Cool fact:

The word "astronaut" comes from the Greek words "astron nautes", which means "star sailor."

 

I think there was some piloting involved because the original seven told the program that they'd quit of there wasn't.

 

Certainly Buzz (Lunar Module Pilot) needed to pilot the Apollo Moon Lander, as the original landing site was covered in big rocks...Having said that, i'm sure they could train a non pilot to land the module...Just not as well.
Buzz had a truck load of experience with flying machines going awry...Just who you need for the first "un-known" landing.
As for Armstrong..."American astronaut and aeronautical engineer, and the first person to walk on the Moon. He was also a naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor." - Another man who you can count on in a sticky situation."



It is said that Armstrong cleaned himself up and was behind his desk 30 minutes after this ejection...Both had the right stuff.

 

Aldrin was titled the Lunar Module Pilot because none of the alpha type astronauts wanted to be called a co-pilot, but in reality, that's what he was. Armstrong flew the landing.

 

As early as our first orbital flight, John Glenn had to use the manual controls and do some real piloting.