Episode 49: Project Mercury, Part VII and Project Gemini, Part I

 After being told that he would never fly in space again, Mercury Seven astronaut Scott Carpenter left NASA and the US Navy SEALAB program which was testing the effect of living in capsules at the bottom of the ocean for extended periods of time on humans. Carptenter (center) served abord SEALAB II.

Those selected for the SEALAB program were given the title aquanaut. Carpent is the only person in US history... and possibly world history (though I will admit that I was lazy and didn't specifically look that fact up) to become both an astronaut and an aquanaut.

Carpenter retired from the Navy on July 1, 1969, three weeks before the first NASA astronauts would land on the moon. In later life, Carpenter would work as a engeneering consultant, wasp breeder (to which I can only ask WHY? Why breed wasps when you could keep bees?!), and a novelist. When he passed away in 2013, at age 88, he was the second-to-last surviving Mercury Seven astronaut. Ironically, this left John Glenn, the oldest of the Mercury Seven at the time of their selection, as the last remianing. Glenn attended Carpenter's public memorial serive in Colorado.

I was unable to find a photograph of Carpenter's headstone - he was interred at the family's private cemetery at their ranch in Steamboat Springs, CO - so I will have to suffice with the above photo on his flag-draped coffin at his public memorial service.

I had to share this final image becasue I am absolutly captivated by the excitment and eagerness in Carpenter's eyes as he suits up prior to going into space aboard Aurora 7.

I can't introduce the Next Nine without including a picture here so here is a NASA publicity photo of the Mercury Seven (seated left to right: Gordo Cooper, Gus Grissom, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra, John Glenn, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton) and the Next Nine (standing left to right: Ed White, James McDivitt, John Young, Elliot See, Charles Conrad, Frank Borman, Neil Armstrong, Thomas Stafford, and Jim Lovell). We'll get to know these guy more in coming podcasts.

Episode 48: Project Mercury, Part VI

 

John Glenn (left) and Scott Carpenter (right) were the primary and alternate pilots for the United States' first orbital flight. I can only imagine what Carpenter was thinking when he got the word NASA was concerned that Glenn's heat shield wouldn't stay on during re-entry and if that happened, his friend burn up on re-entry.

He later admitted that he was a little worried re-entering the atmosphere but also knew that if he did lost the heat shield, it would all be over quickly. After his successful re-entry and recovery by the USS Noa, Glenn was cool, calm, and collected, at least on the outside. Rocking those classic Chuck Taylor's, he was certainly cool!

After his safe return, Glenn was awarded a medal by JFK, address a joint session of congress following a parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, and received a ticker tape parade in New York City. Of all his accolades, it seemed the one he found most unbelieveable was when his hometown named the college gym in his honor.

John Glenn wasn't Friendship 7's only trailblazer. After her great job with the insignia artowrk, Cecelia Bibby was brought back to design and paint the misison logos one each subsequient capsule - including two missions that were never flown.

More three more Mercury flights followed Glenn's but by this time NASA was already looking to the future and Project Gemini which would do even more to get astronauts ready for the real prize - the Apollo mission that hopefully take humans from earth to the moon and safely back again.