It’s… not as bad as it sounds. I think. This The Right Stuff might be OK.
National Geographic has a reputation to protect, right? They don’t want to mess with that, especially since people just like me are going to rake them over the coals about incorrect things the way they wouldn’t a more conventional Hollywood studio*. But it’s still Hollywood, so… you never know.
Moe Lane
PS Based on the book, not the movie.
*Any other Hollywood studio, I’d be assuming that they wrote in a part of a female test pilot in 1962, which is why that one actress was sitting in the fighter jet. But since it’s NatGeo, I can still credibly assume that the answer there is simpler: if you are given the opportunity to put on a g-suit and a helmet and go sit in a fighter jet, you take that opportunity. And maybe make pew-pew sounds when the camera’s off. Because I would totally do that, too.