One of the last remaining Mercury 7 Astronauts is dead...

[BBossman]

God speed Scott Carpenter... One of the last of the Mercury 7 heroes from my childhood is dead. Who wasn't fascinated and inspired by mans travels in space?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/11/us/scott-carpenter-mercury-astronaut-who-orbited-earth-dies-at-88.html

[SilverBullet432]

:( rest in peace, i was bummed when armstrong died. Also, ive always been a fan of gus grissom, that damned door :/

[ptmccain]

Wow....I'm sorry to hear this.

I was going to see him speak last Saturday at the 50th anniversary of the Naval Air Museum in Pensacola, Florida, but it was closed due to the government shut down.

[Voodoo_Man]

RIP, thank you for your service.

[chuckman]

RIP, Sir.

[SteyrAUG]

Braver men than most.

Everyone wants to go to the moon until they realize all the risks involved.

[ptmccain]

I still remember with great fondness the landing on the moon and only until recent years did I find out what kind of enormous problems and complications there were at every step of the way, perhaps most dramatically, the last minutes before they touched down, when they literally had to fly that flying bathtub by hand to a safe touch down spot with only seconds of fuel remaining.

The right stuff...those guys had it.

[SilverBullet432]

Everyone wants to go to the moon until they realize all the risks involved.

im down, but my wife wont let me.:D

[SteyrAUG]

I still remember with great fondness the landing on the moon and only until recent years did I find out what kind of enormous problems and complications there were at every step of the way, perhaps most dramatically, the last minutes before they touched down, when they literally had to fly that flying bathtub by hand to a safe touch down spot with only seconds of fuel remaining.

The right stuff...those guys had it.


My favorite was them accidentally snapping off the breaker that would start the engine and allow them to leave the moon. That they were able to successfully rig a pen to flip the breaker always stuck with me. Imagine if nothing fit and they ended up stuck on the moon because they accidentally snapped off a breaker switch and didn't have a way to fix it.

Second on my list of "you got to be shitting me" things about the lunar lander is that parts of the walls had the structural integrity of heavy duty aluminum foil.

[Tzed250]

My parents bought their first color TV so that me and my brothers could watch the moon landing. Often when I gaze at the moon I think about that day so many years ago. Scott Carpenter is one of the men that got us there. Godspeed...

[SeriousStudent]

I am sorry to hear of his passing.

Fair winds and following seas, Commander Carpenter.

[Heavy Metal]

I still remember with great fondness the landing on the moon and only until recent years did I find out what kind of enormous problems and complications there were at every step of the way, perhaps most dramatically, the last minutes before they touched down, when they literally had to fly that flying bathtub by hand to a safe touch down spot with only seconds of fuel remaining.

The right stuff...those guys had it.

The whole deal with seconds of fuel remaining is they could have aborted with the LM ascent stage at any time, it was fully fueled.

They would not have landed but they most likely would have lived.

[Grand58742]

Godspeed, Scott Carpenter. A brave man and true American hero.

I couldn't imagine the guts it took for the Mercury 7 to strap themselves into that tiny spacecraft. Truly pioneers in our conquest of space.

[ptmccain]

Godspeed, Scott Carpenter. A brave man and true American hero.

I couldn't imagine the guts it took for the Mercury 7 to strap themselves into that tiny spacecraft. Truly pioneers in our conquest of space.

I was down at NASA this last summer and, to me, one of the most interesting displays at the museum area is tucked off to the left, kind of out of the way. It is a great exhibit on early space flight, featuring, of course, the Mercury program, down to the replication of the launch center. The confined space of the capsule is simply mind-blowing. I would have gone stark raving made if I was shut up in that thing, for any length of time, let alone stuck on top of what was basically a ballistic missile and blown into orbit on top of it. It is amazing to see just how small and crude the mechanics and instrumentation was.

The right stuff, indeed.

[LtNovakUSA]

I normally dont post in here, trying to stay more on the "firearms" side of things, but I just had to "pay my respects" when it comes to Astronauts (especially the Mercury - Apollo guys) All meant a lot growing up, and inspire me even to this day. I hope some find it interesting.

When talking about “the right stuff” these guys certainly did have it. One thing to keep in mind about the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo Projects, is that nobody had ever done anything like it before. Hell, it was only 60 years since the Wright Brothers. To go from that to the moon is nothing short of remarkable.

One thing that I don’t think a lot of people understand is how close disaster almost came on virtually every mission in these projects. The fact that the astronauts were able to not only keep their cool, but most times complete ALL mission objectives is mind blowing. There was many times that the astronauts lives were in imminent danger, or at best the mission was very close to complete failure.

In Mercury, of course these were the first forays into space, and most calculations were done on slide rulers. Scott Carpenter, for example, had many auto systems fail on him causing him to have to many maneuvers (to include re entry retrofire) manually. With the primitive systems and spacecraft, the slightest miscalculation could have cost him his life. The worst that happened to him was that he missed his landing zone by quite a margin. Not exactly a HUGE problem (although he never did get a flight after that).

Gemini is really where some harrowing events happened. Everybody knows and has seen the pictures of Ed White doing the first American EVA on Gemini 4, but what most don’t realize was how that was close to fatal. With his suit inflated to 3.5 PSI, it became very stiff and hard for him to move. Getting back into the tiny capsule with an inflated suit in zero gravity proved to be extremely difficult. It really became apparent on Gemini 9, when Gene Cernan attempted to use the first “space jetpack” or Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU). He was so fatigued by the time he even got to it (on the back of the spacecraft) that his heart rate was over 180 BPM, and his visor was completely fogged from perspiration. And of course in space you cant exactly remove it to wipe it off. But being the guy he was, he found that he could use his nose to wipe a spot in the visor to see, and was ready to continue with the flight plan when Mission Control told him to abort and get back in. It really became quite an effort, and there was some serious concern that Tom Stafford would have to attempt re entry without Cernan (leaving him to be a permanent satellite, to use his words). He managed to get stuffed back in, and it was later determined that he lost 10 pounds in perspiration on the 2 hour EVA. Things didn’t go much better for Mike Collins on Gemini 10, or Dick Gordon on Gemini 11. It really wasn’t until Buzz Aldrin developed a system of hand and foot holds, as well as water training for his Gemini 12 EVA that we found that someone could in fact work in a space suit.

Another use of cool in the Gemini program came with Gemini 6A. Right after the engines ignited and the spacecraft was supposed to lift off, they suddenly quit. If the spacecraft had moved AT ALL off the launch pad, it would have then fallen over and exploded. It obviously takes more than that to shake up Wally Schirra, as he didn’t eject right at shutdown and destroy the spacecraft. He kept his cool, stayed in it and was able to end up launching a few days later after the problem was fixed.

Gemini 8 is also remarkable for the disaster that it almost became. Shortly after Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott docked with the Agena Docking Target (1st ever hard dock in space!) a thruster on the Gemini Capsule got stuck in the on position and got the thing spinning at about 1 revolution per second. Both of them were getting tunnel vision and on the verge of blacking out, but Armstrong’s cool came through, and he was able to stop the spinning by using the re entry control thrusters, saving their lives. While the mission was aborted after that, it was still a success, as they were able to prove docking was possible – essential to go to the moon.

Things didn’t slow down much in Apollo, of course starting with the tragedy that cost Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee their lives. NASA really came very close to losing Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan on Apollo 10. In the Lunar Module “Snoopy” Tom and Gene were making a dress rehearsal for the landing on 11, going all the way down to about 10,000 feet of the lunar surface. An errant switch setting caused the ascent stage to go tumbling out of control after they cut the decent stage on their way to rendezvous with John Young in the Command Module “Charlie Brown”. They were a mere 2 seconds away from being a crater on the moon before Stafford was able to stabilize it. (Cernan did yell out “son of a bitch” across the open comms, and of course that broadcast out to the world on live TV – and caused some grief with the censors and NASA – my how times change! you hear that on TV every night.) Some guys talked about the cool that Neil Armstrong displayed on the Apollo 11 landing – no doubt a great example of “the right stuff”. Although, according to both Neil and Buzz, they would not have been stranded with the broken switch if the pen hadn’t fixed it. There was another way to lift off – but Neils performance during the landing was nothing short of extraordinary.

Apollo 12 had a pretty close call, right after launch – when the Saturn V was struck by lightning, causing the Command Module “Yankee Clipper” to basically shut down. But a cool Pete Conrad kept his hand away from abort and continued with the mission. There was some concern on the ground that the pyros for the re entry parachutes had been blown by the lightning, but thankfully they hadn’t. Al, Dick and Pete went on to a picture perfect landing in the Ocean of Storms.

Of course the Apollo 13 mission is well documented, and through some serious use of “the right stuff” Jim, Fred and Jack made it home safely.

Apollo 14 had three moments where the mission was in jeopardy, first when they couldn’t get the docking latches to secure on the Lunar Module “Antares”, then when the abort system was stuck “on” and they had to quickly re program the computer not to auto abort them when they started powered decent, and once again when the landing radar would not lock on. Of course Al Shepard, Edgar Mitchell and Stu Roosa were never phased, and Apollo 14 was a complete success.

There was also some tense moments on Apollo 16, when right after undocking, Ken Mattingly found that there were some problems with the SPS Engine on the Service module, potentially rendering it useless. Cool heads, and the right stuff worked around the problem, and the fifth moon landing was successful.

These are just a few of the problems encountered, some detailed reading really reveals just how hard it was for all involved.

I really hope I didn’t bore anyone with this too much, I just really have a lot of respect for all of these guys. The coolness under pressure and despite the fact that they were doing extremely dangerous stuff thousands of miles from earth – and doing it willingly – is to me a something that we all can aspire to. The voyage to the moon was no picnic, and I don’t think many people know just how harrowing it could get, and did get. I figure that most people on this forum looked up to these guys growing up, I know I sure did. To me they are a real role model and someone to emulate. They did stuff that was way more interesting, meaningful, and substantial than what most people make out as heroes these days. Nobody knows these guys names anymore, but can tell you who the Jonas Brothers are without blinking. I just wanted to take some time to show how remarkable all these guys were, truly changing the way we look at the heavens, and I hope some of you found it interesting.

[SeriousStudent]

That was not boring at all, it was an excellent insight into the brains, skills and flat-out cojones those guys had.

Thanks for taking the time to write that up, I enjoyed reading it.

[Grand58742]

I normally dont post in here, trying to stay more on the "firearms" side of things, but I just had to "pay my respects" when it comes to Astronauts (especially the Mercury - Apollo guys) All meant a lot growing up, and inspire me even to this day. I hope some find it interesting.

<snipped for length>

I just wanted to take some time to show how remarkable all these guys were, truly changing the way we look at the heavens, and I hope some of you found it interesting.

Awesome post. Many and most don't realize how dangerous it truly was back in those days. And even today it's not a cakewalk like many think.