For Spacious Skies: The Uncommon Journey of a Mercury Astronaut, by Scott Carpenter and Kris Stoever
HarcourtBooks, 2002
332 pages plus notes, acknowledgments, and index. 16 pages of b&w photos
Library: B Carpe, M
Description
On May 24, 1962, the tiny spacecraft Aurora 7 carried Scott Carpenter into space, American history, and a lifetime of controversy.
For Spacious Skies offers this Mercury astronaut's never-before-told account of life at NASA. He takes us through the mysteries of the selection process, to the desert for survival training, into the simulator, and onto the contour couch. He describes in stunning detail the flight that made him the second American to orbit the Earth.
During the early years of the space program, each mission helped determine NASA's research progress, the efficiency of its design, and its place in the race to the moon.
When Aurora 7 began to malfunction, everyone at hand frantically tried to detect the cause. What was ultimately found to be a glitch in Aurora 7's pitch horizon scanner forced the astronaut to overshoot his expected landing site by 250 miles and later brought the intentions made during the flight under intense scrutiny.
Scott Carpenter, with his daughter, Kris Stoever, clears up all lingering questions about his flight while telling the history of an amazing frontier family and the strength of the American pioneer spirit.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Part 1: Earth
1. Buddy
2. A Frozen Sea
3. The Unpleasantness
4. Pocketknives, Pens, and Other Edge Tools
Part 2: Sky
5. I am now an Naval Aviation Cadet
6. A Navy Wife?
7. Love, War and Quonset Huts
Part 3: The Stars
8. For Spacious Skies
9. You are Hereby Ordered
10. One Hundred Chimps
11. The Fibrillating Heart
12. Delta Becomes Aurora
13. Commander Carpenter and his Flying Machine!
14. The Color of Fire
Epilogue
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
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