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.

i

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

1

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

2

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

3

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

4

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

5

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.

6

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,

7

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

8

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

9

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.

10

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