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Mercury Astronaut Scott Carpenter Dies At 88

Posted by timothy on from the above-below-and-beyond dept.

schwit1 writes "M. Scott Carpenter, whose flight into space in 1962 as the second American to orbit the Earth was marred by technical glitches and ended with the nation waiting anxiously to see if he had survived a landing far from the target site, died on Thursday in Denver. He was 88 and one of the last two surviving astronauts of America's original space program, Project Mercury." NASA has a nice biography of Carpenter, too, and scottcarpenter.com has much more besides.

4 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. A sad day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Your famous landing on Mercury will never be forgotten, Mr. Carpenter.

  2. God speed by dlt074 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    God speed Sir. Thank you for your service.

  3. When We Left Earth by DCstewieG · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you have Netflix streaming (or want to go through some hassle), check out When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions. Absolutely fantastic documentary on the space race and the way I recently learned about his landing. For reasons outside my control, I was not alive until many years later.

    I totally get the conspiracy theories about a fake moon landing. I know we did it. But looking up at the moon, it's hard to believe it.

  4. He flew into space in a beetle-sized capsule by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Basically, this guy flew into space in something the size of a VW Beetle.

    Think about that.

    No guts.

    No glory.

    He had both.

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