Scott Carpenter

Malcolm Scott Carpenter (May 1, 1925 - October 10, 2013) was an American test pilot, astronaut and aquanaut. He was best known as one of the original sevenastronauts selected for NASA's Project Mercury in April 1959.

Carpenter was the second American to orbit the Earth and the fourth American in space, following Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom and John Glenn. With Carpenter's death, Glenn—as the oldest of the group—is the last living member of the Mercury Seven.

Early life

Born in Boulder, Colorado, Carpenter moved to New York City with his parents Marion Scott Carpenter and Florence [née Noxon] Carpenter for the first two years of his life. His father had been awarded a postdoctoral research post at Columbia University. In the summer of 1927, Scott returned to Boulder with his mother, then ill withtuberculosis. He was raised by his maternal grandparents in the family home at the corner of Aurora Avenue and Seventh Street, until his graduation from Boulder High School in 1943.

Naval aviator

Upon graduation, he was accepted into the V-12 Navy College Training Program as an aviation cadet (V-12a), where he trained until the end of World War II. The war ended before he was able to finish training and receive an overseas assignment, so the Navy released him from active duty. He returned to Boulder in November 1945 to studyaeronautical engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder. While at Colorado he joined Delta Tau Delta International Fraternity. At the end of his senior year, he missed the final examination in heat transfer, leaving him one requirement short of a degree. After his Mercury flight, the university granted him the degree on grounds that, "His subsequent training as an Astronaut has more than made up for the deficiency in the subject of heat transfer."

On the eve of the Korean War, Carpenter was recruited by the United States Navy's Direct Procurement Program (DPP), and reported to Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida in the fall of 1949 for pre-flight and primary flight training. He earned his aviator wings on April 19, 1951, in Corpus Christi, Texas. During his first tour of duty, on his first deployment, Carpenter flew Lockheed P2V Neptunes for Patrol Squadron Six (VP-6) on reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) missions during the Korean War. Forward-based in Adak, Alaska, Carpenter then flew surveillance missions along the Soviet and Chinese coasts during his second deployment; designated as PPC (patrol plane commander) for his third deployment, LTJG Carpenter was based with his squadron in Guam.

Carpenter was then appointed to the United States Naval Test Pilot School, class 13, at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland in 1954. He continued at Patuxent until 1957, working as a test pilot in the Electronics Test Division; his next tour of duty was spent in Monterey, California, at the Navy Line School. In 1958, Carpenter was named Air Intelligence Officer for the USS Hornet.

Ocean research

In July 1964 in Bermuda, Carpenter sustained a grounding injury from a motorbike accident while on leave from NASA to train for the Navy's SEALAB project. In 1965, for SEALAB II, he spent 28 days living on the ocean floor off the coast of California. During the SEALAB II mission, Carpenter's right index finger was wounded by the toxic spines of a scorpion fish. He returned to work at NASA as Executive Assistant to the Director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, then returned to the Navy's Deep Submergence Systems Project in 1967, based in Bethesda, Maryland, as a Director of Aquanaut Operations for SEALAB III. In the aftermath of aquanaut Berry L. Cannon's death while attempting to repair a leak in SEALAB III, Carpenter volunteered to dive down to SEALAB and help return it to the surface, although SEALAB was ultimately salvaged in a less hazardous way. Carpenter retired from the Navy in 1969, after which he founded Sea Sciences, Inc., a corporation for developing programs for utilizing ocean resources and improving environmental health.

Personal life

Carpenter had been married and divorced three times. He married Rene Louise Price in 1948. In 1972, he married Maria Roach, daughter of film producer Hal Roach. He married Barbara Curtin in 1988. He had four children from his first marriage: Marc Scott, Kristen Elaine, Candace Noxon, and Robyn Jay. He also had two children from his second marriage: Matthew Scott and filmmaker Nicholas Andre, and one child from his third marriage, Zachary Scott.

Honors and awards

Carpenter received:

• Navy Astronaut Wings
• Navy's Legion of Merit
• Distinguished Flying Cross
• NASA Distinguished Service Medal
• University of Colorado Recognition Medal
• Collier Trophy
• New York City Gold Medal of Honor
• Elisha Kent Kane Medal
• Ustica Gold Trident
• Boy Scouts of America Silver Buffalo Award.

In 1962, Boulder community leaders dedicated Scott Carpenter Park and Pool in honor of native son turned Mercury astronaut. The Aurora 7 Elementary School, also in Boulder, was named for Carpenter's spacecraft.

Scott Carpenter Middle School in Westminster, Colorado was named in his honor, as was M. Scott Carpenter Elementary School in Old Bridge, New Jersey.

The Scott Carpenter Space Analog Station was placed on the ocean floor in 1997 and 1998. It was named in honor of his SEALAB work in the 1960s.

In popular culture

Speaking from the blockhouse at the launch of Friendship 7, Carpenter, John Glenn's backup pilot, said "Godspeed, John Glenn," as Glenn rose off the launch pad to begin his first U.S. orbital mission on February 20, 1962.

This quote was included in the voiceovers of the teaser trailer for the 2009 Star Trek film. The audio phrase is used in Kenny G's "Auld Lang Syne" (The Millennium Mix). It is also used as a part of an audio introduction for the Ian Brown song "My Star".

Less officially, Carpenter has been reported to add, sarcastically, "Remember, John, this was built by the low bidder". This quote is sometimes improperly attributed to John Glenn.

In the 1983 film, The Right Stuff, Carpenter was played by Charles Frank. Although his appearance was relatively minor, the film played up Carpenter's friendship with John Glenn, as played by Ed Harris. This film is based on the book of the same name by Tom Wolfe.

The character of Scott Tracy in the Thunderbirds television series was named after him.

His recovery is referred to in the Peanuts comic strip of June 28, 1962 after Linus' security blanket is rescued under similar circumstances.