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...ies-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.

[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...