I was always fascinated by Chuck Yeager's reaction to the orignal space program. You would have thought he'd be a natural to want to be an astronaut.
My mother worked at Nellis AFB many moons ago and dated a Colonel who was a top fighter pilot. She knew some of these guys. I remember her talking about their take on it. Many of the pilots thought riding a rocket into space had nothing to do with flying. They loved to fly and were testing some great planes. They would have loved to fly a plane into space if they could but not ride a rocket.
There was controversy and lots of "talk" about and between those that joined the program and those that didn't. Their was jealousy about the attention astronauts were getting verses the test pilots and who were really flyboys and what not. I know one thing, she didn't like John Glenn at all and this was before his days in politics.