THE NEW MEXICO MUSEUM OF SPACE HISTORY
Transcript of THE NEW MEXICO MUSEUM OF SPACE HISTORY
THE NEW MEXICO MUSEUM OF SPACE HISTORY
CURATION PAPER NUMBER SEVEN
SUMMER 2012
A COMMEMORATION OF THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE
FLIGHT OF MA-7, PROJECT MERCURY
EDITED BY JIM MAYBERRY, ASSISTANT CURATOR
LAUNCH OF THE AURORA 7 (MA-7) MISSION. MAY 24, 1962
The New Mexico Museum of Space
History (NMMSH), a branch of the
Department of Cultural Affairs of the
State of New Mexico, was founded in
1976 as the International Space Hall of
Fame.
The Museum includes the Clyde W.
Tombaugh IMAX Dome Theater and
Planetarium, the International Space Hall
of Fame, the John P. Stapp Air and Space
Park and the Hubbard Space Science
Building (the NMMSH’s Archives and
Research Center), all located on the slopes
of the Sacramento Mountains, overlooking
Alamogordo, White Sands, and much of
the Tularosa Basin.
The Museum is charged by the state to
educate residents and visitors to New
Mexico about the history of the
exploration of space, with a special
emphasis on the role New Mexico has
played in those efforts. The International
Space Hall of Fame was established
specifically to honor those individuals who
have helped advance mankind’s
understanding of the Universe. The
Museum also houses many invaluable
artifacts and informative exhibits
showcasing some of the remarkable
achievements of humanity’s exploration of
space.
The NMMSH’s Archives and Research
Center is home to the Museum’s archival
and artifact collections, as well as a library
and research and curatorial offices. The
John P. Stapp Air and Space Park, located
outside of the Museum, contains large
artifacts such as missiles, Little Joe II (the
largest rocket ever launched in New
Mexico), the Sonic Wind I rocket sled
ridden by Dr. Stapp and other historic
items.
The Museum’s Education Department,
located in the Clyde W. Tombaugh IMAX
Theater and Planetarium, offers public
interpretive programs on-site and in
schools across New Mexico. The
Department also runs the New Mexico
Space Academy. The IMAX Dome
Theater and Planetarium, an Alamogordo
fixture since 1980, offers first-run IMAX
movies and special presentations, most of
it associated with space history and public
education.
This issue, Curation Paper Seven,
commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of
the ‘Aurora 7’ (MA-7) mission, a part of
Project Mercury. This story is told by the
oral history of M. Scott Carpenter, the
second American to orbit the Earth. In the
capsule Aurora, Captain Carpenter was
able to conduct several scientific
experiments in this mission of almost five
hours. After leaving NASA in 1967 he
helped establish the first long-term
undersea laboratory, Sealab.
Curation Paper Eight will be published in
the summer of 2012; it will commemorate
the career of Ed Dittmer. Ed, a retired
USAF Senior Master Sergeant, is a
member of the NMMSH International
Space Hall of Fame. His story will also be
told via his oral history. All seven
Curation Papers are available at
nmspacemuseum.org, the website of the
New Mexico Museum of Space History.
Publisher’s note: All photographs in this
issue are courtesy of NASA, unless
otherwise noted.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Official NASA Biography: Scott Carpenter, NASA Astronaut (former) Page 1
NASA Mission Summary (Partial), AURORA 7 (MA-7) Page 3
1998 Oral History (Partial), M. Scott Carpenter, Commander, USN (Ret.) Page 5
1999 Oral History (Partial), M. Scott Carpenter, Commander, USN (Ret.) Page 15
The exhibit on Scott Carpenter and the Aurora 7 at the Chicago Museum
of Science and Industry
Editor: Jim Mayberry, Assistant Curator
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OFFICIAL NASA BIOGRAPHY: SCOTT CARPENTER
NASA ASTRONAUT (FORMER)
Scott Carpenter, a dynamic pioneer of
modern exploration, has the unique
distinction of being the first human ever to
penetrate both inner and outer space, thereby
acquiring the dual title, Astronaut/Aquanaut.
He was born in Boulder, Colorado, on May
1, 1925, the son of research chemist Dr. M.
Scott Carpenter and Florence Kelso Noxon
Carpenter. He attended the University of
Colorado from 1945 to 1949 and received a
Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical
Engineering.
Carpenter was commissioned in the U.S.
Navy in 1949. He was given flight training
at Pensacola, Florida and Corpus Christi,
Texas and designated a Naval Aviator in
April, 1951. During the Korean War he
served with patrol Squadron Six, flying anti-
submarine, ship surveillance, and aerial
mining, and ferret missions in the Yellow
Sea, South China Sea, and the Formosa
Straits. He attended the Navy Test Pilot
School at Patuxent River, Maryland, in 1954
and was subsequently assigned to the
Electronics Test Division of the Naval Air
Test Center, also at Patuxent. In that
assignment he flew tests in every type of
naval aircraft, including multi- and single-
engine jet and propeller-driven fighters,
attack planes, patrol bombers, transports,
and seaplanes.
From 1957 to 1959 he attended the Navy
General Line School and the Navy Air
Intelligence School and was then assigned as
Air Intelligence Officer to the Aircraft
Carrier, USS Hornet.
Carpenter was selected as one of the original
seven Mercury Astronauts on April 9, 1959.
He underwent intensive training with the
National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA), specializing in
communication and navigation. He served as
backup pilot for John Glenn during the
preparation for America’s first manned
orbital space flight in February 1962.
Carpenter flew the second American
manned orbital flight on May 24, 1962. He
piloted his Aurora 7 spacecraft through three
revolutions of the earth, reaching a
maximum altitude of 164 miles. The
spacecraft landed in the Atlantic Ocean
about 1000 miles southeast of Cape
Canaveral after 4 hours and 54 minutes of
flight time.
Scott Carpenter speaks with President
Kennedy after the MA-7 mission
On leave of absence from NASA, Carpenter
participated in the Navy’s Man-in the-Sea
Project as an Aquanaut in the SEALAB II
program off the coast of La Jolla, California,
in the summer of 1965. During the 45-day
experiment, Carpenter spent 30 days living
and working on the ocean floor. He was
team leader for two of the three ten-man
teams of Navy and civilian divers who
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conducted deep-sea diving activities in a
seafloor habitat at a depth of 205 feet.
He returned to duties with NASA as
Executive Assistant to the Director of the
Manned Spaceflight Center and was active
in the design of the Apollo Lunar Landing
Module and in underwater extravehicular
activity (EVA) crew training.
In 1967, he returned to the Navy’s Deep
Submergence Systems Project (DSSP) as
Director of Aquanaut Operations during the
SEALAB III experiment. (The DSSP office
was responsible for directing the Navy’s
Saturation Diving Program, which included
development of deep-ocean search, rescue,
salvage, ocean engineering, and Man-in-the-
Sea capabilities.)
Upon retirement from the Navy in 1969
after twenty-five years of service, Carpenter
founded and was chief executive officer of
Sear Sciences, Inc., a venture capital
corporation active in developing programs
aimed at enhanced utilization of ocean
resources and improved health of the planet.
In pursuit of these and other objectives, he
worked closely with the French
oceanographer J.Y. Cousteau and members
of his Calypso team. He has dived in most of
the world’s oceans, including the Arctic
under ice.
As a consultant to sport and professional
diving equipment manufacturers, he has
contributed to design improvements in
diving instruments, underwater breathing
equipment, swimmer propulsion units, small
submersibles, and other underwater devices.
Additional projects brought to fruition by his
innovative guidance have involved
biological pest control and the production of
energy from agricultural and industrial
waste. He has also been instrumental in the
design and improvement of several types of
waste handling and waste-transfer
equipment.
Carpenter continues to apply his knowledge
of aerospace and ocean engineering as a
consultant to industry and the private sector.
He lectures frequently in the U.S. and
abroad on the history and future of ocean
and space technology, the impact of
scientific and technological advance on
human affairs, and man’s continuing search
for excellence. An avid skier, he spends
much of his free time on the slopes in his
home of Vail, Colorado, his home for the
past fifteen years.
He has appeared as television spokesman for
many major corporations, including General
Motors (Oldsmobile), standard Oil of
California, Nintendo, and Atari; and has
hosted and narrated a number of television
documentaries. He has also served as
actor/consultant to the film industry in the
fields of space flight, oceanography, and the
global environment.
He has written two novels, both dubbed
underwater techno-thrillers. The first was
entitled The Steel Albatross. The second, a
sequel, was called Deep Flight. His memoir,
For Spacious Skies which he co-authored
with his daughter, Kristen Stoever, was
published by Harcourt in January 2003.
Carpenters awards include the Navy’s
Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying
Cross, the NASA Distinguished Service
Medal, U.S. Navy Astronaut Wings, the
University of Colorado Recognition Medal,
the Collier Trophy, the New York City Gold
Medal of Honor, the Elisha Kent Kane
Medal, the Ustica Gold Trident, and the Boy
Scouts of America Silver Buffalo. He has
been awarded seven honorary degrees.
JANUARY 2004
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NASA MISSION SUMMARY (PARTIAL), AURORA 7 (MA-7) MISSION
Crew: M. Scott Carpenter
Payload: Spacecraft No. 18 (Aurora 7),
Vehicle Number 107-D
Mission Objective: Corroborate man-in
orbit
Orbit:
Altitude: 166.8 by 99.9 statute miles
Orbits: 3
Period: 88 min 32 secs
Duration: 0 Days, 4 hours, 56 min, 5
seconds
Distance: 76,021 statute miles
Velocity: 17,549
Max Q: 967
Max G: 7.8
Launch:
May 24, 1962. 7:45:16 EST. The launch
countdown proceeded almost perfectly, with
only a last-minute hold of 45 minutes
occurring at the T-11 minutes mark in
anticipation of better camera coverage and
to allow aircraft to check the atmospheric
refraction index in the vicinity of Cape
Canaveral. The launch vehicle used to
accelerate Carpenter and the Aurora 7
spacecraft was an Atlas D. The differences
between the Atlas 107-D launch vehicle and
the Atlas 109-D used for MA-6 involved
retention of the insulation bulkhead and
reduction of the staging time from 131.3 to
130.1 seconds after liftoff.
The performance of the launch vehicle was
exceptionally good with the countdown,
launch and insertion conforming very
closely to planned conditions. At sustainer
engine cut off (SECO) at T+5min10sec, all
spacecraft and launch vehicle systems were
go and only one anomaly occurred during
launch. The abort sensing and
implementation system (ASIS) Hydraulic
switch No. 2 for the sustainer engine
actuated to the abort position at 4:25
minutes after liftoff. Pressure transducer
H52P for the sustainer hydraulic
accumulator was apparently faulty and
showed a gradual decrease in pressure from
2,940 psia to 0 between 190 and 312
seconds after liftoff. Another transducer in
the sustainer control circuit indicated
that pressure had remained at proper levels
so the switch did not actuate until the normal
time after SECO.
Landing:
Spacecraft overshot intended target area by
250 nautical miles. After landing, Carpenter
reported a severe list angle on the order of
60 degrees from vertical and post flight
photographs of the spacecraft taken after
egress indicated approximately a 45 degree
list angle. An Air Rescue Service SA-16
amphibian aircraft established visual contact
with the spacecraft 39 minutes after landing
(1:20 pm) and the USS Farragut, at about 90
nautical miles southwest of the calculated
landing position was first to reach the
capsule.
Carpenter was picked up by HSS-2
helicopters dispatched from the aircraft
carrier USS Intrepid (CVS-11) while the
destroyer USS Farragut (DLG-6) watched
the Aurora 7 capsule until it could be
retrieved with special equipment aboard the
USS John R. Pierce about 6 hours later. A
Considerable amount of sea water was found
in the spacecraft which was believed to have
entered through the small pressure bulkhead
when Carpenter passed through the recovery
compartment into the life raft. The
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spacecraft was delivered by destroyer to
Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico with
subsequent return to Cape Canaveral by
airplane.
Recovery Training
Mission Highlights:
Total time weightless 4 hours 39 min 32 sec.
The performance of the Mercury spacecraft
and Atlas launch vehicle was excellent in
nearly every respect. All primary mission
objectives were achieved. The single
mission critical malfunction which occurred
involved a failure in the spacecraft pitch
horizon scanner, a component of the
automatic control system. This anomaly was
adequately compensated for by the pilot in
subsequent in-flight operations so that the
success of the mission was not
compromised.
A modification of the spacecraft control-
system thrust units were effective. Cabin
and pressure-suit temperatures were high but
not intolerable. Some uncertainties in the
data telemetered from the
bioinstrumentation prevailed at times during
the flight; however, associated information
was available which indicated continued
well-being of the astronaut.
Equipment was included in the spacecraft
which provided valuable scientific
information; notably that regarding liquid
behavior in a weightless state, identification
of the airglow layer observed by Astronaut
Glenn, and photography of terrestrial
features and meteorological phenomena. An
experiment which was to provide
atmospheric drag and color visibility data in
space through deployment of an inflatable
sphere was partially successful. The flight
further qualified the Mercury spacecraft
systems for manned orbital operations and
provided evidence for progressing into
missions of extended duration and
consequently more demanding systems
requirements.
Training with the Aurora 7 capsule
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ORAL HISTORY TRANSCRIPT (PARTIAL)
M. SCOTT CARPENTER
INTERVIEWED BY MICHELLE KELLY
HOUSTON, TEXAS – 30 MARCH 1998
KELLY: The first question I wanted to ask
you is, how did you actually become an
astronaut, and what made you decide to
want to be one?
CARPENTER: … President [Dwight D.]
Eisenhower decided, along with the
powers that existed at that time in the
Soviet Union, that in our ICBM
[Intercontinental Ballistic Missile]
technology lay the promise of artificial
satellites and eventually manned artificial
satellites. [Brief interruption] President
Eisenhower made a decision that we
should try to do this because it was so
important … [to our] international prestige
… that we be preeminent in space… [H]e
decided we should try to do that [put men
in space] and that we should take these
spacemen from the ranks of jet-qualified
military test pilots. I happened to be one of
those. He also said that these people
should have a degree in aeronautical
engineering or related science. I happened
to have that, and I was just in the right spot
at the right time.
The Soviets did the same thing, but they
didn't take test pilots; they took
parachutists because they [Soviet
spacecraft] came down on their own
parachutes. But in any event, that's how it
was decreed that I would be considered. I
was ordered to Washington under secret
orders, briefed on the project and asked if I
wanted to volunteer. … as you know,
flying a spacecraft, … is a normal
extension of test flying. It is your job in
that business to fly airplanes that go higher
and faster, and this was a quantum leap in
those directions. So that's how it
happened. I didn't always want to be a
spaceman when I was a boy, because there
was no such thing.
KELLY: You're truly one of the pioneers.
CARPENTER: It came out that way.
KELLY: Can I ask you a little bit about the
selection and the astronauts, I guess the
tests that they went through? Can you tell
me a little bit about those and your times?
CARPENTER: Yes. The selection was not
viewed by the public in its true light. A lot
of people thought it was painful and very
hard. And it was not. There was some hard
work. That was the centrifuge. But the rest
was simple, made simple by the fact that
all of those tests were so much fun. They
really were, and we learned about our own
capabilities. We learned a lot about the
capabilities of the human body in general.
We faced a lot of unknowns in those days
that are no longer unknowns, but that
made it even more interesting because
outside of the fact that we were competing
with the Soviet Union, which was the
driving force in the earlier days, we were
also satisfying a compelling curiosity
about near-Earth space and about the
human organism and the human intellect
as well: Can we design a machine that will
do this, and can we stand the ride? It was a
fascinating time, because, mainly, we were
making so many unknowns known.
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KELLY: What were some of the most
memorable tests that you had gone
through, whether they were funny or
difficult or challenging?
CARPENTER: Well, the centrifuge is always
fun, but hard work. We did all kinds of
treadmill walking and running to
exhaustion. We rode bicycles to
exhaustion, but we disproved a lot of
theory about human limits and endurance.
The anechoic chamber was fun. That’s the
place where you are isolated, can't hear a
thing, can't see a thing. You go in not
knowing how long you'll be in there. Some
people told you to expect being in this
environment for two or three days. It
turned out to be an hour or something. So
that was fun.
What else? There are so many fun
experiences, we'd never get on to space
flight if we went into all of those. But they
were all fascinating experiments trying to
find out if the human organism had some
weak spot that would make him, make the
organism, unable to withstand space flight.
And they tried hard to find one, but there
weren't any.
KELLY: To your knowledge, were there
other scientists or even physicians who
were looking into that data on those tests,
to see the limits?
CARPENTER: Oh, you mean now?
KELLY: Yes. Are you aware of them?
CARPENTER: Oh, sure. Limits, human
limits, are still being explored, and we're
doing that today in terms of long-duration
space flight, because that's one thing we
still haven't proved: can we stand
weightlessness for the duration of a Mars
flight. And I often thought in the early
days that, … these people … [were] being
very undemocratic about the tests and the
suspicions they had of us because we're
being considered guilty of … being
[un]able to withstand space flight, instead
of being considered innocent … [at the
outset]. We showed them we … [could] do
it, you know.
KELLY: From what I understand, you
broke a few … [records] yourself.
CARPENTER: Oh, yes, but that's not
important. And those tests, they revealed a
lot of physical capabilities not really
important to space flight, but they do …
properly demonstrate perseverance. And,
you know, you can do anything if you
persevere. And where I did well, it was
only because of perseverance, and there's a
lot of things in space flight that require …
[perseverance].
KELLY: You're very modest.
CARPENTER: Well, that's as it should be.
We were very, very lucky people.
KELLY: I know that you, I think, were in
the class with "Deke" [Donald K.] Slayton
when you were actually going through the
tests at the Lovelace Clinic.
CARPENTER: … [we were together at
Wright-Pat [Wright-Patterson Air Force
Base] but I think not at Lovelace.]
KELLY: Can you tell me a little bit about
him and what your personal impressions
of him were?
CARPENTER: … We [all] went through the
same tests … [he did it] like everybody
else did. The one thing that was a standout
about Deke was that he was a non-
swimmer, and he didn't tell anybody that
he went through our training with the
Navy SEALS, scuba diving and all that,
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and he never told anybody [about] that. He
couldn't even swim. His wife used to talk
about his practicing at home in the kitchen
sink, inhaling through his mouth and
exhaling through his nose. But that was a
measure of his perseverance.
Donald K. ‘Deke’ Slayton
KELLY: What do you think some of the
selection criteria were? Talk about what
the selection was at the time and how they
decided they wanted particular people to
go into the Mercury Program. Do you feel
that anything stood out in your mind?
CARPENTER: Anything stood out in the test
program, you're saying?
KELLY: Yes, within the tests, when they
decided to actually go ahead through the
selection process and advance from those
tests into the next round.
CARPENTER: Well, we measured the guys
very well and in lots of different areas, and
all had some small--all made some
contribution and some indication of
suitability for space flight.
None of those tests revealed anybody who
was not suited for space flight, but the real
critical test was to be found on the
centrifuge. That has direct relationship to
space flight. But everybody did that okay,
too. However, you have to realize that men
have certain limits, and we designed the
machine and the flight profile to stay
within those limits. We pushed the limits,
because that was necessary for a number
of reasons, but the human was the [major]
determinant.
KELLY: I'd like to go on and ask you a
little bit about once you were selected,
what was the training like then? Was it
very different than what you'd gone
through as far as the initial test and
selection rounds?
CARPENTER: No. We continued to do a lot
of work on the centrifuge, because now…
the flight profile was better known and
being tailored to both the ballistic flight
and the orbital flight. The major difference
was in developing procedures and building
machinery and techniques to do what we
decided some time before to try to do, but
now we're building the machinery to do it.
And that's fascinating, too.
KELLY: And were you involved in
building the machinery itself?
CARPENTER: Sure. We were involved with
every phase of the construction of our
spacecraft. I happened to have personal
responsibility for navigation and
communications. I had done that in the
Navy at the [Patuxent River, Maryland,
Naval Air] Test Center. I also had
experience in a Navy airplane, this
photographic airplane, photo recon, that
had a big viewport like this, similar to
what we would have in the spacecraft. So
each of us brought past experience to the
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endeavor, along with our burning desire to
see if we could do it.
KELLY: What did you do as far as tracking
the communication and navigation
equipment advances?
CARPENTER: Well, I followed the
development of the communications
system, but navigation is a misnomer. You
couldn't navigate that machine. It was a
bullet, and you could decide when to come
down, but after you'd made that decision,
you couldn't aim it. It was already aimed.
So, navigation had some input to the
charts we used, but not in getting from one
place to another, except from launch to
entry.
KELLY: How about the communications
system? How were you involved there?
Were you working with the McDonnell
[Aircraft Corporation] plans?
CARPENTER: Yes. We worked with Collins
[Radio Company]. They made our radios.
We didn't have expertise in design of
communications equipment, but we were
apprised of all the developments, and we
had editorial rights. If we didn't like what
they had decided to do, we'd change it, and
they never decided to do anything, really,
without checking with the forces that
controlled all of this at NASA.
KELLY: That's probably very good and…
CARPENTER: It was very well handled.
KELLY: Did anything stand out in your
mind as far as your training went that was
actually original or most memorable?
CARPENTER: We had a lot of fascinating
simulators. You know, the simulation field
started in aviation a long time ago with the
Link trainer, but we really put some fine
touches on the Link trainer, and we had
some fascinating machines that allowed us
to experience everything we would
experience in flight, everything with the
exception – if you couple it with work on
the centrifuge, everything except
[prolonged weightlessness and] the impact
with the water.
And that was benign, too. I'm just
reminded of a device used in selection.
That is a funny machine, and I wish it
could be recreated. It was called "the panic
box." You've heard about the panic box?
KELLY: No, I haven’t. Please tell me.
CARPENTER: It's a little cubicle with a
front wall and a ceiling, two walls. You sat
down in a chair, and all you could see was
the inside of this cubicle, and there were
lights and gongs and whistles and
indicators, gauges, bells, everything,
control handles of every type, knobs to
turn and indicators that told you if one of
the instrument readings was out of proper
range.
Carpenter training for the mission
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You had to watch all of these instruments,
and if you saw one reading improper[ly],
you had to adjust the handle to get it back
in the right spot. If any reading – there
were maybe thirty or forty separate
readings, each with its own different
control that you had to keep centered, and
if one of them … stayed out of its normal
range for more than five seconds, a red
light came on and flashed, and if it stayed
out of its normal range for more than ten
seconds, a big, loud buzzer would come
on.
It really …[was] sensory overload,
because there is so much to watch and
adjust, and you don't have a lot of time,
and then you've got this red light and the
klaxon scaring the bejesus out of you. … I
had occasion to watch a fellow, after I had
done this, [it was hilarious]. It's hilarious
to see a normally intelligent human being
in there, going crazy. It …[makes you
look] like you're going crazy.
Anyway, you do this at normal speed for a
half an hour. After you've done the box for
half an hour, you get pretty familiar with
which control handles which instrument.
So then you're given a short rest and put
back in the chair, and this time you do it
again for half an hour at twice the speed.
They run a tape through to upset these
readings, but it comes twice as fast. So
you're really busy, but you're still learning
how it worked. And then you got a rest
period, and you go back and try to keep
ahead of it at four times the original speed.
That was a real challenge, a real challenge.
KELLY: It was probably very amusing to
watch someone.
CARPENTER: Yes. But that had direct
application to flying, in general. It really
pushed you.
KELLY: I'll bet you spent a lot of time in
simulators when you were actually
assigned as backup for John [H.] Glenn
[Jr.]'s flight.
CARPENTER: Everybody spends a lot of
time in simulators so that by the time you
really fly, everything that lies ahead of you
you've done hundreds of times before,
And that is the most valuable training
device that has ever been devised, and it's
used around the world now, not only for
aviators, but for ship pilots and captains,
tanker captains. A marvelous new science.
KELLY: Can I ask you about when they
actually decided who was going to take the
first flight or the first few flights? When
they announced, I believe, it was Alan [B.]
Shepard [Jr.], [Virgil I.] Gus Grissom, and
John [H.] Glenn [Jr.] for the first flight.
Now at that time – you know, it's always
been wondered and discussed, did they
actually know who was going first among
the seven of you. And did you have any
inkling whatsoever what was going on at
that time, or were you pretty much left out
of the loop and NASA…
CARPENTER: We were left out of that
decision-making. The way it happened
was [Dr. Robert R.] Bob Gilruth selected
three guys for the first two flights, I think.
Al was to get – when we all learned this,
Al got the first flight, Gus got the second
flight, and John, I think, was to be backup
for both of them. That's all we knew. The
other four of us, Deke, Wally [Walter M.
Schirra, Jr.], Gordo [L. Gordon Cooper,
Jr.], and I were sort of odd men out. I think
that was not handled quite right, but it is
unimportant. And they flew.
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The Mercury 7 (Carpenter on the right)
And then John got the first orbital flight,
and, of course, everybody was
disappointed that they didn't get the first
flight. And Al, of course, was very pleased
that he got the first flight. He had reason to
be, but it turned out that--and we didn't
even know that we would make only two
ballistic flights and then go into orbital
flight. So it turned out that the fellow who
got the third flight really had the most
heroic mission of them all.
I was named backup for John, and Deke
was to take the next orbital, and Wally
Schirra was his backup. But early on in
preparation for Deke's flight, he had that
hiccup, a heart problem … – no more
significant than a hiccup, but again, we
didn't know. Anyway, the decision was
made since it was so early in the
preparation for Deke's flight and that I had
had so much experience through all of
John Glenn's scrubs, that I should get
Deke's flight. So that didn't please Wally
very much, but that's the way it went.
Wally went ahead to fly next, and Gordo
came after that.
KELLY: Can I ask you a little bit about
something we talked about before? During
Mr. Shepard's flight, the first space flight,
you actually were in an F-106 jet?
CARPENTER: Yes.
KELLY: Something like that.
CARPENTER: I think those were F-102s.
Wally and I were chase pilots and in 102s,
and that was because launch operations
was run by [Walter C.]Walt Williams,
who had had his upbringing at Edwards
[Air Force Base, CA], where every new
airplane, first flight, had a couple of chase
planes to make sure there's somebody
there watching what's going on. And so it
sounded reasonable that we should have
somebody chasing Al Shepard.
So Wally and I were there … [flying
circles around the pad], and I think we had
radio contact with the count. When Wally
comes down, you can check with him
about this, but I don't remember hearing
the countdown, and I don't remember
seeing Al one second, because we're going
this way and he's going this way.
[Laughter]
KELLY: Straight up.
CARPENTER: I didn't see a thing, … [and] I
don't think Wally did either. So we didn't
chase any flights after that. And it's a good
custom, but it had, in the Space Age,
outworn its usefulness.
KELLY: And it was just such and unknown
at that time.
CARPENTER: Along with many others.
KELLY: Then when you were acting as Mr.
Glenn's, Senator Glenn's, backup, can I
ask you something about some of the
things that you did, and did you train
together?
11
In Training
CARPENTER: We did everything together,
yes, and that went on for quite a while. We
learned so much then, too. We learned so
much about what we should do and so
much about what we both should not do
and should not have done. But that's the
name of this game.
Well, yes. Of course. We learned a lot
from each mission, but it gave us
confidence in the machine and it also
opened up the flight plan for some
scientific pursuits that were not just
experimental flight-test objectives, and
that was fun, too. I was glad about that.
KELLY: You were actually probably one of
the first in space, actually, to conduct
scientific experiments during your
mission.
CARPENTER: Well, I guess that's so, but the
whole thing is, John's flight was certainly
concerned with science, but it was more
inside the machine than it was outside in
the environment, and I was, quite frankly,
more interested in where I was than I was
in what got me where I was.
KELLY: Can you tell me a little bit about
that, your experience on your flight?
CARPENTER: Well, we didn't know about
how a lot of things would behave in zero-
G, outside. We didn't know anything about
the slipstream. We didn't know anything
about how well we could see certain
celestial phenomena, sunsets and sunrises
and occlusion of the stars at the horizon.
There was just an awful lot of questions
that we were asking.
And I have a good curiosity, and I'm
always eager to answer and ask questions.
That's what this flight did. It asked a lot of
questions and brought home some new
truths, one of which cleared up the
mystery of John Glenn's fireflies. We
really didn't – just as in those days we
didn't really know for sure that the moon
was not made out of green cheese,
expected it wasn't, but didn't know.
John saw these fireflies just prior to entry
and called them fireflies, and we really
didn't know for sure that there weren't
some sort of living, glowing critters out
there. A big question mark. It turns out
they were ice that had condensed and
adhered to the spacecraft when you hit the
side, and they'd float off. A big mystery. It
seems like nothing now, but it satisfied a
lot of curious folks in its time.
KELLY: So what do you think was the
most important thing that you learned
either personally or professionally on that
flight?
CARPENTER: Personally, it's a spiritual
experience for anybody with a soul, I
think, and I got that. It's a religious
experience for some, maybe they've got
two or three souls, I don’t know.
12
So, personally, it was a cherished
experience. I feel I got the chance to see
the inner workings of the grand order of
things. In the overall scheme of things, it
proves that men can do about anything
they want to if they work hard enough at
it, and I knew that I could do it, and that's
a good thought. And that leads, of course,
to a strong suspicion that everybody else
can do it if they want to.
KELLY: May I ask you a little bit about –
and this is kind of a touchy question, so
you don't have to answer it if you don't
like to, but if you'd like to set the record
straight about your landing and I know
there was a lot of controversy about it, but
I'd just like to ask what your opinion and
your take on it is.
CARPENTER: Well, okay. There were three
contributors to an overshoot. One of them
was – the major one was that the
spacecraft was out of alignment. It is not
known how much out of alignment. It was
good in pitch and roll, but yaw, I had
faulty yaw indicator readings, and there's
no way you can read yaw by looking at the
horizon. But it had given me some trouble
for half an hour or more before retrofire.
So there was that misalignment which
made me go too far. They were late by a
second and a half or two because the gyros
being not indicating properly; I had caged
them and I had to set them off manually.
That contributed to an overshoot, and they
were under thrust, as well.
All of these things made me go too far,
and I managed my fuel supply badly on
the second orbit over Australia. There was
excessive fuel use, which scared a lot of
the folks on the ground. There was
enough. There was enough for the entry. A
lot of people thought there would not be.
And it was anybody's guess.
It was interesting to me to note that on the
last part of the entry, when I was out of
fuel, that very fact proved that that
particular aerodynamic shape had the
stability that was designed into it, so that
there was reason to believe that you could
make a good entry without any fuel. It's
not necessary to try, but it proved the
value of the design.
KELLY: [to third party] Thank you, I
appreciate that. And I also understand you
had some trouble with your suit, your
pressure suit, as well.
CARPENTER: Yes, it overheated. That was
over Australia. That was bothersome.
KELLY: And did they learn anything from
that?
CARPENTER: I didn't. I don't know whether
that failure was ever pinpointed.
KELLY: I'd like to ask you a little bit about
your recovery. I read your flight plan from
after the flight as well, and you discussed
how you inflated your raft and you
basically egressed from the spacecraft, and
you were just on your own, biding your
own time, and you mentioned you were
just taking in your surroundings.
CARPENTER: Yes. I had sort of a blessing
there for the hour after the flight.
Everybody else had been confronted
immediately with a debriefing team, and
that's an occupational hazard.
Nobody knew where I was, and I didn't
know that. I knew where I was. [Chuckles]
But I didn't know that they didn't know
back on shore.
So I climbed out, I got in the life raft, and I
had a quiet time to contemplate what had
happened, and I treasure the recollection
13
of that. Pretty soon – and I wasn't worried,
either, because there's a SARAH [Search
and Rescue and Homing] beacon that's
sending out signals to a lot of people
listening, and I just didn't even think about
it. But pretty soon a plane turned up. It
was a plane I used to fly, and I waved to it.
Then another plane turned up, and there
were, before I was picked up, I think,
seven airplanes flying around me, and I
got tired of waving at them. I didn't pay
any attention to them.
MA-7 Survival Kit
I was sitting there in the raft, and I heard
this calm voice say, "Hi, there." And three
Navy SEALS had jumped out of one of
the airplanes and swam up … [to] me.
They had a big raft [to] put around the
spacecraft. So we talked a little bit, and I
offered them some of my survival food.
They said they weren't hungry.
KELLY: What kind of survival food was
that?
CARPENTER: Well, I don't know. It was in
a package that came out with the life raft,
a candy bar and some other high-energy
food. Then years and years and years later,
I went to a meeting in [the] San
Bernardino Courthouse. Some people
came in, and I stood up, and, … [said,]
"Nice to meet you." This was two decades
after that. This fellow shook hands and
said, "We've met before." I said, "I'm
sorry. I've forgotten. Where was it?" He
said, "It was in the middle of the Atlantic
Ocean," and he was one of the guys who
had jumped out.
KELLY: That’s really interesting.
CARPENTER: It was nice to see him.
KELLY: That's terrific. I guess I'd like to go
on and ask you a little bit about what you
did for post flight. I understand that you
had to debrief the press.
CARPENTER: Wait. I don't understand.
KELLY: After your flight, you debriefed
the press and you debriefed NASA. What
activities did you move on to from there?
Were you working still in the Mercury
Program?
Onboard the USS Intrepid
CARPENTER: Well, yes, but then I got – I'd
been following [Jacques] Cousteau's work
all along, and through all the work here in
Houston and watching his films, and being
a dedicated diver after my first Navy tour
of duty in Hawaii, it occurred to me that
14
Cousteau's CONSHELF [Continental
Shelf] program might benefit from a lot of
the technology that we were building for
space flight.
So I asked Gilruth if I could go suggest a
leave of absence from NASA to Cousteau
to work as a NASA representative with his
program. He was speaking at MIT
[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]. I
went up and posed this idea. I met all his
divers, including Philippe [Cousteau], and
we decided that it might be a good idea
and there might be some good technology
transferred. He said, "You don't speak the
right language, after all, and we can't pay
you very much, … [but] if what you want
to do is share the technology, why don't
you do it with your own Navy?"
…[It was] through Cousteau that I learned
of the Navy's Sealab program.
Incidentally, it was the United States Navy
that first postulated the techniques that
Cousteau was using in CONSHELF.
That's a U.S. Navy idea. And Cousteau
just got on the big screen first, but the
work was all done by the United States
Navy.
So I went to see George Bond, who had
that program, and suggested that I come as
a representative of NASA and maybe get a
chance to dive, and he said fine. I went
back and talked to Bob Gilruth. Bob said
fine. And so that began a series of
transfers back and forth between Mercury
and Gemini and Sealab that ended
ultimately in my leaving NASA in '67, I
think, going back to the Navy for Sealab 3,
which was underfunded and hurried, and
we didn't have enough time. It was a great
idea, but it was an abysmal failure, and we
lost a life, and the Navy canceled that
work from then on. A sad thing, but that
happened.
KELLY: The first thing I want to ask you,
now that we're on tape again, is how you
came about with the idea of proposing to
NASA using underwater training as
weightless training.
CARPENTER: Well, we had a lot of tasks to
perform in the water outside Sealab, and
the problem in the water is you don't have
traction, and it's because your weight is
negated by the buoyancy, by the water.
You need foot rests, something that allows
you to stand solidly somewhere like you
do here, and if you're in a buoyant medium
like water, you can't do that.
You've got to provide an artificial
restraint. That was done in space flight,
partly because of what we learned and
planned to do things like that in the water,
and it was a very good transfer of
technology this time from the ocean to
space.
The trajectory of MA-7
15
ORAL HISTORY TRANSCRIPT (PARTIAL)
M. SCOTT CARPENTER INTERVIEWED BY ROY NEAL, NEAR VAIL, COLORADO
– 27 JANUARY 1999
NEAL: All right. Let’s do. You know, you
were born here in Colorado. Anything in
that background that leant to your
becoming an astronaut?
CARPENTER: Not that I can think of,
except they’re both high country orbit and
Colorado mountains.
NEAL: Well, from there you went down
to low country, meaning the Navy. Right
down at sea level. Why Navy?
CARPENTER: Well, I was a naval
aviator. But how in the world I got an
affection for the deep blue ocean, having
grown up in the high country of Colorado,
I don’t know. I’ve pondered that question
a lot and can’t answer it for you.
NEAL: There is an evolution there, none
the less, though. Because I see in your
background: test pilot school, intelligence
schools, all of these that led up to your
being selected as an astronaut. Can you
describe that training and how you think it
might have played off into that eventual
choice?
CARPENTER: Curiosity is a thread that
goes through all of my activity. I’ve been
curious. I’ve also been frightened by the
deep ocean. I wanted, number one, to learn
about it; but, number two, I wanted to get
rid of what I felt was an unreasoned fear of
the deep water. I was also inspired by what
[Jacques] Cousteau had done. I saw a use
for NASA technology in ocean
technology, and first proposed to Cousteau
that I come and share technology with his
program. He said, “Well, we could use
your experience, but you don’t speak the
right language and we can’t pay you very
much. But,” he said, “if you want to share
technology with the ocean, do it with your
own United States Navy.” And that’s how
it happened.
NEAL: Well that’s, of course, what
happened after you had been an astronaut.
So let’s come back to that, if we may,
Scott. And right now, let’s go back to the
origins and relate, if we can, that naval
background and the deep sea—the ocean,
if you will—into the oceans of space.
CARPENTER: Okay. I can do that by
recounting one episode that revealed to me
an unreasoned fear of the ocean. I flew big
airplanes with a large crew out of Hawaii
early in my Navy career. We were doing a
survival exercise in which we had to
manage ourselves in two life rafts on deep,
dark, blue water.
We lost overboard from the raft I was in a
corner reflector, which is the most
important piece of equipment you’ve got
on a raft in a real survival situation. It is
the thing the radar will pick up and guide
rescue [in] your direction. It went
overboard, and I thought of trying to get it.
But I was afraid of the sharks and the
critters in that water, and I didn’t do it. But
my gunner’s mate, without a second
thought, jumped overboard, was gone for a
long time, but he swam down and got that
corner reflector and brought it back up.
And I thought, “There is a brave man,”
and it made me ashamed of myself. That
was the genesis of my need to conquer my
fear of the deep ocean. It’s an important
thing. Conquering of fear is one of life’s
16
greatest pleasures, and it can be done a lot
of different places.
NEAL: And so you made application for
that other ocean, space; and eventually you
were named to the Space Task Group. It
must’ve been quite a thrill to be named to
that elite group. Or was it?
CARPENTER: Sure. The greatest thrill of
my life. Getting to be a part of the crew
that would do this unheard of thing, and a
thing that would banish so many
unknowns. It’s food for curiosity.
The Mercury 7; Scott Carpenter is in
the front row, on the right
NEAL: Well, you were with a rather
distinguished group. Could we take them
one-by-one and kind of look at them
through your eyes? Let’s say, just for the
sake of discussion, John [H.] Glenn [Jr.].
CARPENTER: He and I bonded
immediately. Who can describe the
reasons for bonding? I just have a great
deal of respect for him. We had a lot of
interests in common. There were three Air
Force fellows in the group. We used to kid
each other about not caring much for one
another, but we all recognized that we
were on the same side. This isn’t Cold
War time. They were, all of them, highly
qualified professionals, and I have the
highest respect for every one of them. I
was just more bonded with John than any
of the others because of common interests.
NEAL: How about Gus [Virgil I.]
Grissom?
CARPENTER: A true professional. Didn’t
have a lot to say, but when he said
something it was always worth listening
to.
NEAL: Wally [Walter M.] Schirra [Jr.]?
CARPENTER: The joker. He doesn’t like
to be called “the joker,” but he is a great
high-jinks fellow, you know? And he
added a lot of levity to everything we did,
and that was very valuable.
NEAL: How about Deke [Donald K.]
Slayton?
CARPENTER: Deke [was] probably the
most dedicated, single-minded
professional test pilot of the group. He was
more dedicated to airplanes in general and
how they work, I think, than any other
fellow in the group.
NEAL: Alan [B.] Shepard [Jr.]?
CARPENTER: Born leader. Came to the
program with a lot of experience and a lot
of talent. And it showed up in his choice
as the first spaceman in this country.
NEAL: How about Scott Carpenter? How
would you see him fitting into that group?
17
CARPENTER: I leave that to others.
NEAL: Very good. You had early
assignments in Mercury. Do you
remember what they were?
CARPENTER: Communications and
navigation, and that’s as a result of my
experience at Patuxent [River, Maryland,
Naval Air Station], the Naval Air Test
Center, with equipment and techniques
that had to do with Earth observation and
photography and communications.
NEAL: Did those specialties pay off for
you a little later in the program?
Communication? Navigation?
CARPENTER: Well, those sciences, if
you will, were the ones that I was directed
to follow. So I had a background that was
helpful in the tasks that were assigned to
me by NASA.
NEAL: Well, what were some of your
early assignments in Mercury?
CARPENTER: Making sure that the
communications equipment worked well
and the navigation techniques were
adequate to the task. These were just the
small tasks that I was given to monitor
solo, and each of us had certain tasks for
which they were responsible. We all had a
lot of tasks to do together.
NEAL: Not the least of which was the
assignment of being Capcoms round the
world during those early Mercury flights,
when it was astronauts could only talk to
astronauts. Where were you, for example,
during John’s [pause]. Well, let’s start at
the beginning with Alan Shepard and then
with John Glenn and Gus Grissom, where
were you?
CARPENTER: For Alan’s flight, Wally
Schirra and I, in keeping with an old Air
Force— Edwards, as a matter of fact—
practice of chasing every experimental
flight with airplanes. Walt [Walter C.]
Williams from Edwards [Air Force Base,
California], highly placed in the
Administration in those days, thought we
should chase Al Shepard’s flight just
because it was always done. So Wally
Schirra and I were given some Air Force
airplanes (F-102s) to chase Al’s flight.
We orbited and we couldn’t stay close to
the pad, because there were a lot of
unknowns and dangers in those days that
we didn’t quite know how to cope with.
But Wally and I were circling the pad,
listening to the count, but at some
distance, maybe 3 miles away. And Al
took off, going straight up, and Wally and
I never saw a thing! You can’t chase a
Redstone going straight up in a 102, so all
we did is fly circles. And we came down
and sort of said to each other, “What
happened?”
NEAL: It’s pretty well known, by now,
but let’s go back over the background of
where you were for John Glenn’s flight
and what you did. It kind of made a little
history.
CARPENTER: Yeah, well I was John’s
backup; and part of that job was to be in
the blockhouse during the count, and that’s
where I was. And I was taking care of all
of the communications from the launch
people and the launch complex to John.
And I was, so I was told, the only one who
would be able to communicate with John
in that period from T-minus 18 seconds to
liftoff.
That’s when it occurred to me that this
fellow named John Glenn, in order to have
18
a successful flight, was going to have to
put under his belt more speed than we had
ever given a human before. Speed was the
essence. If he could get the speed and if it
were in the right direction, he had orbital
flight licked. You know, “Godspeed” is
something you hear all the time; but speed
was very, very important to John. And it
just came to me, “Godspeed, John Glenn;”
and I think the fact that his name is two
short syllables made it ring a little better.
But anyway, somewhere in the count
between 10 and zero I said, “Godspeed,
John Glenn.”
And it was a salute to him, but there was a
feeling, I think, in me at the time that it
could be viewed as a plea to whatever
Higher Power to, you know, make this
flight a success. And I would suggest that
nobody can tell me that that plea didn’t
work, because the flight did.
NEAL: It worked not once but twice,
because NASA made special arrangements
for you when John flew the second time
[on STS-95]. Can you tell us about that?
John Glenn and Scott Carpenter, 1962
CARPENTER: Yes. Well, yeah, but I will
also tell you that both of these pleas,
“Godspeed, John Glenn,” he didn’t hear—
and I just recently learned this—until after
the launch. I thought he heard them both
when I said them, but that wasn’t the way
it happened. I couldn’t say the same thing
on the Shuttle flight because it’s not a solo
flight. So I thought it appropriate to add,
“Good luck to the commander and crew of
the Shuttle and, once again, Godspeed,
John Glenn.” That statement has had
endurance that surprises me.
NEAL: Perhaps with good reason. Well,
let’s go back now to your flight. How did
you get to fly MA [Mercury Atlas]-7,
Aurora [7], instead of Wally Schirra?
CARPENTER: No, no.
NEAL: How did you get into that flight?
CARPENTER: It was Deke, first of all.
NEAL: Oh, Deke first. That’s right.
CARPENTER: Deke was assigned to that
flight.
NEAL: Let’s go through that sequence,
shall we?
CARPENTER: Yeah, okay.
NEAL: How did you get to fly MA-7?
Let’s rephrase the question.
CARPENTER: Well, okay. The flight
after John’s, which was MA-6, was MA-7;
and Deke Slayton was assigned that flight.
On the centrifuge during the training
period for that flight Deke had an anomaly
in his heart which in conventional medical
wisdom of that time was considered
disqualifying. We recognize now that it
19
was no more serious than a hiccup, but
Deke was scratched and he wouldn’t fly
again for a long time, until Apollo-Soyuz
[Test Project]. It was a destructive thing
for Deke.
Wally was his backup and by rights should
have gotten the flight. But Walt Williams
again, I think (I don’t know who made the
decision), but it was a NASA decision that
since I had had such an intimate
relationship with the MA-6, getting John
ready to go, that I was better prepared to
take the next flight than Wally was, the
standby. That was very destructive to
Wally, too, and we’ve survived that; but
he was angry, and with reason. Anyway, I
got the flight. And Wally became not only
backup as he had been for Deke, but my
backup; and he got the flight following.
NEAL: And you called the flight, or called
the spacecraft, Aurora. What’s in a name?
Where’d you get a name like that?
CARPENTER: Well, there’s some popular
disagreement about that. I named it Aurora
because I saw it as a celestial event, and
the Aurora borealis is a celestial event. I
liked the sound of it and the celestial
significance.
First of all, let’s go into 7. Al Shepard
started that with Freedom 7, and the Press
caught that and said, “Isn’t that nice of Al
to name his capsule Something 7 in honor
of the seven astronauts, his buddies?” And
everybody believed that. The fact of that
matter is that he named it “7” because it
was capsule number 7 off the line. But the
people didn’t know that! But since
everybody wanted to match Al’s largesse,
Gus had Liberty Bell 7 and John had
Friendship 7, so I had to do something
with “7,” and it was Aurora 7. But the
people back home in Boulder, down on the
front range, thought, “Wasn’t that nice of
Scott to name his capsule Aurora 7 for the
fact that he was born and raised in a house
in Boulder on the corner of Aurora and
Seven Street?” So I give you the real
reason behind Aurora, but people from
Boulder don’t believe it.
The Aurora 7 insignia
NEAL: Did you run into any problems in
flight? Or was it a nominal flight up till the
bitter end?
CARPENTER: Oh boy, sure! There were
problems in all of those flights. I had one
that’s most famous for overshooting by
250 miles. I had the record for
overshooting the target for a long time
until some cosmonauts came along some
years later and missed theirs by 1500
miles. But there was an overshoot that
caused a lot of dismay in the Control
Center, and it was, if you talk to Chris
[Christopher C.] Kraft about that, failure
of the man. If you talk to me about it, it’s a
failure of the machine. Where the truth is,
I don’t know…
20
NEAL: You’ll never have a better
opportunity to express your point of view
than right now, Scott. Why don’t you grab
it and run with it? …
…CARPENTER: Yeah, well, part of that
difficulty came from mismanagement of
my fuel system, which caused a great
concern on the ground because I was
ahead of my fuel consumption line. That
was not good, and I didn’t like that any
better than anybody else. However, there
were other failures that exacerbated the
effect of low fuel; and when you get right
down to the other problem with the flight,
which directly caused the overshoot, there
were three failures that were all additive.
First of all, the retrorockets were slightly
under thrust. That may be a minimal
influence on the overshoot. They were late
because of an attitude instrument failure
which really had not been discovered. I
didn’t—there was no yaw check in the
flight plan. Maybe there should’ve been,
but we didn’t expect that; and, remember,
we’re learning.
Anyway, the yaw indicator was bad. I
think all the attitude instruments were
faulty, but intermittently. So when it came
time for retrofire, I had to cage those gyros
and fly manually, out the window,
attitudes that I thought were right. Pitch is
no problem. You can see that easily on the
horizon. Roll doesn’t enter into it. But yaw
is very difficult to see without spending a
lot of time tracking your progress, and I
didn’t do that.
I probably would have done that had I not
been so fascinated by the discovery that
John Glenn’s were not fireflies but pieces
of frost. That fascinated me. A major
discovery, I thought. In any event, all of
these things added to an overshoot. The
retrorockets were not pointed in the right
direction because I was not pointed in the
right direction. I attribute that to
instrument failure, and there is some
disagreement about that.
NEAL: Let me go back over one element
of that, that you mentioned; that is, the
fireflies from John’s flight, because we
should explain more precisely what you
mean. John saw something out the
window. Would you explain that?
CARPENTER: Yeah. It’s hard to realize
that we didn’t know for sure at that time
whether or not there were living critters
out there at 150 miles’ altitude because
John said, “There are fireflies.” He called
them that, and we really didn’t know
whether something like that existed.
That’s a good indicator of the state of our
ignorance in many things at that time in
the space program.
It turned out—as I was stowing
equipment, banging the hatch on the side
of the capsule just before retrofire—the
“fireflies” started flying past the window;
and I could make more fly by, by banging
the hatch. And it was little pieces of frost
in the—illuminated by the Sun, behind me
at this time at sunrise; and they were just
little ice crystals; and I figured, “Hooray!
We know the answer to that question.” It
was a moving time for me.
NEAL: In retrospect, what do you think
now as you think back on zero g and
spaceflight in general as you experienced
it?
CARPENTER: You have to realize that
my experience with zero g, although
transcending and more fun than I can tell
you about, was in the light of current
spaceflight accomplishments very brief.
21
But it’s the nicest thing that ever happened
to me, and I can’t believe that I wouldn’t
enjoy it just as much for a more prolonged
period. The zero-g sensation and the visual
sensation of spaceflight are transcending
experiences, and I wish everybody could
have them.
NEAL: You could certainly understand
why John wanted to go back up there for
the longer flight, can’t you? Would you
have taken the same opportunity?
CARPENTER: Oh sure. But it was not
offered me. That is the fact of the matter.
I, as a matter of fact, am questioned
frequently about this: Would you do it?
And one of the answers is tongue in cheek
but it is also partly true: I’m not old
enough.
The launch of MA-7
NEAL: You had plenty of time after
landing, when you were down in the
ocean. You had plenty of time to think
about the mission. And I wonder, what
were your thoughts during that period of
time when you were waiting to be picked
up after your flight?
CARPENTER: I had uninterrupted time.
When I say “uninterrupted time,” most
everybody else who’d gotten back was
subjected immediately to pressing
questions and a large debriefing team; and
they don’t have much time, as much as I
did, for introspection and reflection on the
events of the past 5 hours. I treasured that.
The only living critter I had around for a
long time was a gold-colored fish that had
taken up residence under my life raft in the
shade of the life raft. And I remember
contemplating the marvelous experience
and enjoying time to reflect on it.
NEAL: You know, in space, as you’ve just
described it, you were quite concerned
with the effects of being there and figuring
out what was really going on. Do you
think you were really effective at that time
in explaining those effects? And of course
in more recent years, I’m looking at the
fact that, as the spaceflight continued,
television became an aide and people now
can share the flights, ad nauseum almost.
But back then, it was all in your hands. We
couldn’t see; we couldn’t hear. You were
our eyes and ears. Do you think you were
effective in explaining what was going on
in space around you?
CARPENTER: All I can tell you is that I
hope so, but that’s another question that
must be asked others. I tried to do that; but
it is difficult, I think, to describe all of the
sensations of spaceflight. It was a new
concept then. Never before done. People
understand it better now because they’ve
lived with it all these years. But not then.
22
NEAL: You were also the first to propose
a neutral buoyancy tank. I can certainly
understand that in view of your Navy
background; using water to simulate, if
you will, zero g. When first you came up
with that suggestion, how did NASA
receive that idea at first?
CARPENTER: Well, I don’t think there
was any objection. The idea bore fruit in
many, many different ways. It required the
expenditure of a lot of money to build a
neutral buoyancy simulator, but it has paid
off handsomely in training people for
EVA [extravehicular activity] and it’s, you
know, irreplaceable.
NEAL: And thoroughly one of the tools of
NASA today. Have you had a chance to
operate within that neutral buoyancy tank
at all in recent years?
CARPENTER: No. I was at the tank in
Houston, but I didn’t get in the water. But
I’ve had experience doing that in the open
ocean with Sealab.
NEAL: I think that kind of brings us right
back to where we started some time back.
You had described, if you will, your
acquaintance and the working relationship
with Cousteau. So right now you moved
out of the realm of astronaut. Let’s move
the transition, first of all, what you did
after your flight. It became fairly common
knowledge, and I think you were privy to
the fact, that you probably would not fly
again. Is that right?
CARPENTER: Well, you know, not at the
time of my choice. I got really fascinated
with this idea that I discussed with
Cousteau and then with George Bond of
transferring technology to the ocean. And I
did that, or I tried to do that, with Sealab
1; and then I broke my arm and couldn’t
make that dive, but went back to polish
that idea off in Sealab 2. And that was
another transcending experience for me.
NEAL: Well, you had several
considerations before you left NASA,
didn’t you? You had other jobs in the
interim there before you left NASA?
CARPENTER: Oh yeah, sure, and part of
it was in the development of that neutral
buoyancy simulator. But I really, by that
time, became enamored of the people and
the idea involved in living underwater.
And that was my new love.
NEAL: And do you see a relationship
between the things that you discovered
underwater and the things that you
discovered in the ocean of space?
CARPENTER: There are many, many
similarities in the training and in the
environment [of], quote, “isolation and
confinement.” And the people—the people
are similar, although Navy and civilian
deep-sea divers are not as highly educated
by and large as the heroic spacemen are,
they are the greatest bunch of unsung
heroes I’ve ever known.
And the other thing that gives me an
affection for the whole idea, and the
people and the science, is the fact that
these Navy and civilian divers put their
lives on the line for the benefit of new
science and for, at that time, national
security just as surely as the heroic
spacemen do; but nobody cares a whit
about these divers. Nobody even notices
what they do.
NEAL: Well, perhaps the Navy should do
oral histories as NASA’s doing with
spaceflight. Since we are dealing with
spaceflight, though, let’s deal with other
23
astronauts after the Mercury Seven group.
Did you have a working relationship with
the crews that came after that?...
All right, I was asking let’s get back on a
space track, because this is primarily
obviously for NASA at Johnson Space
Center, oral histories there. And I was
asking if you had met—working
acquaintance with any of the other
astronauts after the Mercury Seven.
CARPENTER: Sure; and they’re a highly
respectable group, all of them. I was—you
know, I really feel privileged to know
these fellows as well as I did. I had a
particular affection for Ed [Edward H.]
White [II], and I hated to see what
happened. He was the prince of the new
guys. Dave [David R.] Scott was a favorite
of mine. But they’re all highly
accomplished, dedicated fellows that I was
honored to know.
NEAL: Let’s take a look at some of the
other people of that era and ask for your
recollections. Pad leader Guenter Wendt.
What do you remember?
Suiting up before the launch
CARPENTER: Yeah, Guenter Wendt.
He’s a great, great fellow. He was
probably more closely associated with
every flight than any other fellow on the
ground—except for Joe [Joseph W.]
Schmitt, who was the suit man. Two
dedicated, fine fellows that I remember
with great fondness.
NEAL: When you got buttoned in, those
were the fellows that used to see you as
they buttoned you in, weren’t they? The
last human beings. How about others like,
oh, [Manned Spacecraft] Center Director
Bob [Robert R.] Gilruth?
CARPENTER: Yeah, he was, in his own
words, he was “the maestro.” I don’t know
that he used “maestro,” but he did say that
his job at NASA was like conducting an
orchestra; and that’s what he did. He was a
bright, dedicated man for whom I also
have great respect.
NEAL: Speaking of conducting an
orchestra, there was [NASA
Administrator] Jim [James E.] Webb.
CARPENTER: Yeah. Instrumental in the
early days, he was very effective at his
position in Washington…
NEAL: We’re asking for your
recollections of people, and we had just
gotten to Jim Webb, the Administrator of
NASA during that key period in time.
What do you remember?
CARPENTER: I remember a very
effective representative for NASA in
Washington. He did everything required,
and then some.
NEAL: And how about Chris Kraft?
24
CARPENTER: Chris was effective as
Mission Director, and he was Control
Center boss for a long time. And he was
dedicated and served NASA for a long
time in the Control Center; and he even
became Director of Manned Spacecraft
Center for a while, I think, later.
NEAL: Another of the guiding lights at
that time was Chuck [Charles W.]
Mathews. Do you remember Chuck?
CARPENTER: Not as well as Chris
[interrupted].
NEAL: He moved into the Gemini
Program.
CARPENTER: And some of these other
fellows you’ve mentioned.
NEAL: He was aboard at the time of
Mercury, but basically he became Mr.
Gemini. All right. Let’s move on. What
are some of your favorite anecdotes?
Things that you might remember during
the years that you spent in the space
program? Strangest, funniest, that kind of
thing.
CARPENTER: They’re all unmentionable.
NEAL: Every one? There must be one that
you can dredge out of your memory that
can be retold.
CARPENTER: No, not seriously. Well,
there was one episode when John and I
were racing in his convertible for
Friendship Airport. We were late for the
airplane going, I think, to St. Louis; and
we were going just barely to have time to
race through the airport and catch an
airplane. And I was getting the tickets out,
ready to turn them in, and it occurred to
me that I could surprise John a little bit by
making him think that the tickets flew out
of the car in the slipstream.
So I let the envelopes go by. He was
driving furiously down the road, trying to
make the airplane; and I told him, “The
tickets had just blown away.” On that
freeway, there’s no way to turn around, so
we had lost the airplane. And he took it
very well. He laughed about it, and [said]
we’d take another airplane. But then I told
him, “It was just the envelopes that I lost”
and that we could proceed to the airport,
and he continued to laugh. But I remember
that his laugh had a different note when he
knew we were still able to make the
airplane. We were always playing jokes on
each other. They would go—I could go on
forever with that.
NEAL: Well, we don’t have forever, but if
you’d like to try one more we’d be
delighted to hear it.
CARPENTER: Wally and I were driving
from Oceania back to Langley [Research
Center, Hampton, Virginia] in his little
MG, I think it was. The top was down, and
I think the top wouldn’t work. And we
encountered a thunderstorm, and we got so
much water inside that car that if you
opened the doors the water would run out.
And Al Shepard passed us going home and
saw us water-soaked in this car, and
somehow or other a cartoon was drawn of
that episode. I think Wally has it. Two
bedraggled passengers—driver and
passenger—in a car filled with water. It’s
a good cartoon. We should—I should ask
Wally about that.
NEAL: A lot of these anecdotes showed
up in Tom Wolfe’s book called The Right
Stuff. You were in that book. You played
a prominent role. And in the movie that
25
followed. There’s been a lot of discussion
about it, pro and con. I wondered, what are
your impressions of The Right Stuff, the
book and the movie?
CARPENTER: Well, I think the book is
good and I think the movie is good. My
affection for both is colored some by my
great affection for Tom. He is a bright,
bright, fine man; and I think the film is a
great film. I’m asked about it frequently,
and people say, “Does it tell the truth?”
And I say what I believe: that the book and
the movie, for that matter, are truthful.
They made—they take—both of them take
some literary license with facts, but only
nonessential facts. The important details
portrayed by both the book and the film
are presented accurately.
NEAL: Finally came that day after your
Mercury flight when you were involved
with moving astronaut training and your
residence in Florida to Houston. Now what
were your feelings about the decision to
locate MSC [Manned Spacecraft Center]
near Houston, first of all?
CARPENTER: I really didn’t feel strongly
about that decision. It was an exciting
move. Houston seemed like a good place
to be, better than Newport News
[Virginia]. And, you know, since the
decision was made without any input from
me, I went along with it, happily, just like
I think everybody else did.
NEAL: What was it like, once you’d made
the move? What was it like living in the
Clear Lake community? Now, that’s both
from the personal and a professional point
of view.
CARPENTER: Yeah well, it turned out to
be a very good decision. The Houston
community was—they welcomed us with
open arms. We developed a great affection
for the country and for the people. I didn’t
care for the flat land too much. I didn’t
care for the temperature and the humidity.
I remember making fun of that territory
when I would take my family—bring them
here to Vale, as a matter of fact—to ski in
those days. It was a 2-day car trip. One
and three-quarters of those days was all in
Texas. It’s all flat land. It gets boring, but
that’s okay. Houston is a long, long way
away from everyplace else; but it’s got—
it’s a fascinating place that I still like.
NEAL: And, of course, the story of the
Manned Spacecraft Center goes without
saying. It’s had a tremendous history, and
probably has a tremendous future,
wouldn’t you think?
CARPENTER: That is up to the people of
this country. We need, I think, a goal other
than the International Space Station. We
need to get cracking on a manned flight to
Mars, because that is going to capture the
interest and the support and the
imagination of the people of this country
who pay for spaceflight. Without that,
Houston can dissolve. We need to go to
Mars.
NEAL: You don’t think the International
Space Station is a good interim step?
CARPENTER: I think it is, but I think it is
only interim. We need something bigger
and better.
NEAL: Well, let’s qualify that. How do
you really see the International Space
Station right now?
CARPENTER: As a valuable, current
pursuit; but it needs to be followed by
things that demonstrate more vision.
26
NEAL: Is the technology ready to tackle
Mars as a goal?
CARPENTER: Yes, sir.
NEAL: Why do you say that?
CARPENTER: Because it’s a fact. We
know how to do that. We just don’t know
how to get the money. We don’t know
how to get the support that will provide
the money. The technical problems, if we
haven’t solved them already, they’re easily
solved in the near future.
NEAL: Well, I think that answers my last
question, which is where you’d like to see
the nation go in space. Unless there’s
something else beyond that, that I’m not
seeing.
CARPENTER: Oh sure. Mars is interim.
But for now, that’s a goal that NASA and
the country and the planet can live with
enthusiastically.
Scott Carpenter and family
NEAL: Well you know, Scott, we covered
just about all the basic questions that I had.
But it occurs to me that I ought to give you
the chance to say anything that you really
want to say. Is there anything that you’d
like to bring into this discussion, realizing
that you’re writing oral history for the
historians and for Public Affairs both.
Realizing that, is there anything that you’d
like to bring in this discussion that I
haven’t given you the chance to talk
about?
CARPENTER: Only that I feel I have
been a very, very, fortunate man to have
lived at the time when so many unknowns
can be made knowns; and that’s happened
in this century.
And that pleases me probably more than
anything else, because I think it is fair to
say that I have been (and remain) a very
curious person. And I’ve had a lot of
satisfied curiosity in my time.
NEAL: You’ve had the chance, really, to
live out your curiosity, haven’t you? To
find out at least a few of the answers you
were looking for.
CARPENTER: Yep. And satisfying
curiosity ranks number two in my book
behind conquering of fear.
NEAL: Would you recommend the
profession of astronauts to young people?
CARPENTER: Oh, of course. But so
would I recommend learning to be a
concert pianist. There are thousands of
challenges, and it’s got to be to each his
own. Every—every child has got to seek
his own destiny. All I can say is that I have
had a great time seeking my own.
NEAL: Debbie, I’ve finished with my list
of questions. Do you have anything you
think we should add to this? Have we
covered the bases from your point of
view?
VOICE OFF CAMERA: Very, very
thorough. I don’t know if you’ve really
27
mentioned anything, though, about the
future of NASA, you know, and all the
underwater—
NEAL: The underwater things? Well, let’s
give that a shot, shall we? You’re talking
now NASA’s future under water or the
Navy’s? Which? Are we talking Navy—?
Well, let’s just cover the broad field of
where the country may be going undersea.
That’s a much broader question; it allows
you the leeway to maneuver any direction
that you see fit.
CARPENTER: During Sealab 2 when we,
for the first time, put men in residence on
the ocean floor at 200 ft. (never been done
before), it was a great technical triumph; a
physiologic triumph as well. And in the
film that the Navy made, the documentary
of that episode, it was stated, “Who
knows, perhaps in a few years we will be
living and working at 20,000 ft.”
We thought that would be possible at that
time. It turns out now that physiologically,
and maybe technologically, [it] is no
longer possible. We have come to a brick
wall at around 2,000 ft. for putting men
down and allowing them to stay and work
and swim there at ambient pressure.
There is a physiologic limit—and it’s
called High-Pressure Nervous Syndrome
(HPNS)—that makes men at that high
pressure unable to do meaningful work. So
it is not any longer an open-end project. I
think for that reason that until we conquer
that limit, the nation is not going to have
much interesting work to do in the very
deep ocean. I don’t see it as a place where
people will live. Maybe work. There may
be industrial communities of some sort at
that pressure in the deep ocean, but I think
not residential communities. We’re sort of
confined to the surface of the land and the
ocean for a long time, except the surface
of other worlds.
NEAL: So you then see actually a double-
headed program with basic emphasis,
perhaps, on space and secondary emphasis
on the sea as the future?
CARPENTER: Yeah, I hope that the
ocean hangs in there because it harbors a
lot of wealth and information and riches
that we need to pay attention to. And we
are not doing that with the vigor that I
would like to see. It will happen, but you
have to realize it is just not the glorious
endeavor that spaceflight is. It never will
be.
NEAL: All right, Debbie. I’m happy with
what we have.
VOICE OFF CAMERA: I’ve got one
more.
NEAL: Go right ahead.
VOICE OFF CAMERA: I’m just curious.
NEAL: No, that’s all right. Don’t be sorry.
For heaven’s sake. We’re asking for
anything you want to add.
VOICE OFF CAMERA: In fact, I’m not
sure if it’s going to pick up on audio,
but—
NEAL: I’ll repeat your question.
VOICE OFF CAMERA: Something I
picked up on when you were talking about
the Mars as just an interim step. You
didn’t really go into a lot of detail of
where you thought we were headed after
Mars, some of your ideas of where you
thought we should be headed.
28
NEAL: All right. She’s going to pin you
down. I was not going to, but I will now.
You say Mars might just be an interim
step. Take us from there, Scotty. Beam us
up.
CARPENTER: Okay. Sure. Again, I’m
inspired by my curiosity. I want to know
what Mars feels like, looks like, what
riches are there, what we can do there.
And although flight there is an interim
measure, in the long range there is a lot to
be done on Mars. And I firmly believe that
we will, I hope, within two decades (but
I’d like to see it even sooner), have not
only a manned flight to Mars but the
development of an outpost on Mars and
then a colony.
And I expect that the people who talk
about terraforming Mars, this will take
generations. But it is within our technical
know-how to make Mars habitable to un-
space-suited humans. We can have
permanent residents on Mars composed of
Earthlings. And once we learn how to do
that, we can go other places in the solar
system. That’s within the reach of our
current technology. To get outside the
solar system [will] take some development
that’s very hazy at this very moment, but it
is going to be possible.
NEAL: You do see some things within our
solar system, such as a few moons on
some of the far out planets?
CARPENTER: Of course.
NEAL: Let’s talk about that. The goals
beyond Mars: where would you go?
CARPENTER: To the moons of Jupiter
maybe. But first, I think, is Mars. Then
and when we learn how to do that, then we
will know more about how we can go
elsewhere, and where elsewhere might be.
NEAL: Now, Debbie.
VOICE OFF CAMERA: Excellent.
NEAL: I think that covers—you noticed,
he dodged your question. [End of
Interview]
Commander Carpenter after recovery
29
Recovery of Aurora 7
Life Magazine Cover, 1962
COMMANDER M. SCOTT CARPENTER
THE NEW MEXICO MUSEUM OF SPACE HISTORY
CURATION PAPER NUMBER SEVEN
SUMMER 2012
National Geographic Magazine. 1962