Did Scott Carpenter die

Answer 1

Malcolm Scott Carpenter (born May 1, 1925 in http://www.answers.com/topic/boulder-1) is a former http://www.answers.com/topic/test-pilot, http://www.answers.com/topic/astronaut, and http://www.answers.com/topic/aquanaut. He is best known as one of the http://www.answers.com/topic/mercury-seven astronauts selected for http://www.answers.com/topic/mercury-program in April 1959. Created by the newly formed http://www.answers.com/topic/nasa, Project Mercury was the United States' answer to the http://www.answers.com/topic/union-of-soviet-socialist-republics's space program. This rivalry eventually became the http://www.answers.com/topic/space-race-1 - a contest between the two http://www.answers.com/topic/superpower to land the first men on the http://www.answers.com/topic/moon and return them safely to Earth. Scott Carpenter was the second American to orbit the Earth and the fourth American in space, following http://www.answers.com/topic/alan-shepard, http://www.answers.com/topic/gus-grissom, and http://www.answers.com/topic/john-glenn-jr. Carpenter and Glenn are the last living members of the Mercury Seven as of March 2009. == ==

Born in http://www.answers.com/topic/boulder-1, Carpenter moved to http://www.answers.com/topic/new-york-city-of-southern-new-york with his parents (Marion Scott Carpenter and Florence [néeNoxon] Carpenter) for the first two years of his life. (His father had been awarded a postdoctoral research post at http://www.answers.com/topic/columbia-university.) In the summer of 1927, young Carpenter returned to Boulder with his mother, then ill with http://www.answers.com/topic/tuberculosis. He was raised by his maternal grandparents in the family home at the corner of Aurora Avenue and Seventh Street, until his graduation from http://www.answers.com/topic/boulder-high-school in 1943. Upon graduation, he was accepted into the http://www.answers.com/topic/v-12-navy-college-training-program as an aviation cadet (V-12a), where he trained until the end of http://www.answers.com/topic/world-war-ii. He returned to Boulder in November 1945 to study http://www.answers.com/topic/aerospace-engineering at the http://www.answers.com/topic/university-of-colorado-at-boulder (CU). At the end of his senior year, he missed the final examination in http://www.answers.com/topic/heat-transfer-1, leaving him one requirement short of a degree. After his single 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." http://www.answers.com/topic/scott-carpenter#cite_note-1 On the eve of the http://www.answers.com/topic/korean-war, Carpenter was recruited by the http://www.answers.com/topic/united-states-navy-1's Direct Procurement Program (DPP), and reported to http://www.answers.com/topic/naval-air-station-pensacola in the fall of 1949 for pre-flight and primary flight training. He earned his wings on http://www.answers.com/topic/april-19, http://www.answers.com/topic/1951, in http://www.answers.com/topic/corpus-christi-texas. During his first tour of duty, on his first deployment, Carpenter flew http://www.answers.com/topic/p-2-neptune for Patrol Squadron Six on reconnaissance and ASW (anti-submarine warfare) missions during the http://www.answers.com/topic/korean-war. Forward-based in http://www.answers.com/topic/adak-alaska, Carpenter then flew surveillance missions along the Soviet and http://www.answers.com/topic/china-13 coasts during his second deployment; designated as PPC (patrol plane commander) for his third deployment, Lt. (j.g.) Carpenter was based with his squadron in http://www.answers.com/topic/guam. Scott Carpenter was then appointed to the http://www.answers.com/topic/united-states-naval-test-pilot-school, class 13, at http://www.answers.com/topic/naval-air-station-patuxent-river in 1954. He continued at Patuxent until 1957, working as a http://www.answers.com/topic/test-pilot in the Electronics Test Division; his next tour of duty was spent in http://www.answers.com/topic/monterey-California, at the Navy Line School. In 1958, Carpenter was named http://www.answers.com/topic/air-intelligence-officer for the http://www.answers.com/topic/uss-hornet-cv-12. Working through five onboard experiments dictated by the flight plan, Carpenter helped among other things to identify the mysterious 'fireflies' (which he renamed 'frostflies,' as they were in reality particles of frozen liquid around the craft), first observed by John Glenn during MA-6. Carpenter was the first American astronaut to eat solid food in space. http://www.answers.com/topic/scott-carpenter#cite_note-2 Unnoticed by ground control or pilot, however, this "overexpenditure of fuel" was caused by an intermittently malfunctioning pitch horizon scanner that would later malfunction at reentry. Still, NASA later reported that Carpenter had: "exercised his manual controls with ease in a number of [required] spacecraft maneuvers and had made numerous and valuable observations in the interest of space science. . . . By the time he drifted near Hawaii on the third pass, Carpenter had successfully maintained more than 40 percent of his fuel in both the automatic and the manual tanks. According to mission rules, this ought to be quite enough hydrogen peroxide, reckoned Kraft, to thrust the capsule into the retrofire attitude, hold it, and then to reenter the atmosphere using either the automatic or the manual control system."http://www.answers.com/topic/scott-carpenter#cite_note-3 At the retrofire event, however, the pitch horizon scanner malfunctioned once more, forcing Carpenter to manually control his reentry ("The malfunction of the pitch horizon scanner circuit [a component of the automatic control system] dictated that the pilot manually control the spacecraft attitudes during this event."http://www.answers.com/topic/scott-carpenter#cite_note-4 The PHS malfunction jerked the spacecraft off in yaw by 25 degrees to the right, accounting for 170 miles (270 km) of the overshoot; the delay caused by the automatic sequencer required Carpenter to fire the retrorockets manually. This effort took two pushes of the override button and accounted for another 15 to 20 miles (32 km) of the overshoot. The loss of thrust in the ripple pattern of the retros added another 60 miles (97 km), producing a 250-mile (400 km) overshoot. Forty minutes after splashdown, Carpenter was located in his life raft, safe and in good health, by Major Fred Brown, under the command of the Puerto Rico Air National Guard,http://www.answers.com/topic/scott-carpenter#cite_note-5, and recovered three hours later by the http://www.answers.com/topic/uss-intrepid-cv-11. Postflight analysis described the PHS malfunction as "mission critical" but noted that the pilot "adequately compensated" for "this anomaly . . . in subsequent inflight procedures."http://www.answers.com/topic/scott-carpenter#cite_note-6, confirming that that backup systems-human pilots-could succeed when automatic systems fail.[1] Some 21st-century memoirs http://www.answers.com/topic/scott-carpenter#cite_note-7 revived the simmering controversy over who or what, exactly, was to blame for the overshoot, suggesting, for example, that Carpenter was distracted by the science and engineering experiments dictated by the flight plan and by the well-reported fireflies phenomenon. Yet fuel consumption and other aspects of the vehicle operation were, during Project Mercury, as much, if not more, the responsibility of the ground controllers. Moreover, hardware malfunctions went unidentified, while organizational tensions between the astronaut office and the flight controller office - tensions that NASA did not resolve until the later http://www.answers.com/topic/project-gemini and http://www.answers.com/topic/apollo-program-1 programs - may account for much of the latter-day criticism of Carpenter's performance during his flight. Carpenter never flew another mission in space. After taking a leave of absence from the astronaut corps in the fall of 1963 to train for and participate in the Navy's Sealab program, Carpenter sustained a medically grounding injury to his left arm in a motorbike accident. After failing to regain mobility in his arm after two surgical interventions (in 1964 and 1967), Carpenter was ruled ineligible for spaceflight. He resigned from NASA in August 1967. In July 1964 in http://www.answers.com/topic/bermuda, Carpenter sustained a grounding injury from a motorbike accident while on leave from NASA to train for the Navy's http://www.answers.com/topic/sealab project. In 1965, for Sealab II, he spent 28 days living on the ocean floor off the coast of California. He returned to work at NASA as Executive Assistant to the Director of the http://www.answers.com/topic/lyndon-b-johnson-space-center, then returned to the Navy's http://www.answers.com/topic/mystic-class in 1967, based in http://www.answers.com/topic/bethesda-maryland, as a Director of Aquanaut Operations for Sealab III. 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. In 1962, Boulder community leaders dedicated Scott Carpenter Park in honor of native son turned Mercury astronaut. The Aurora 7 Elementary School, also in Boulder (at 3995 Aurora Ave.), was named for Carpenter's capsule. Malcolm Scott Carpenter (born May 1, 1925 in http://www.answers.com/topic/boulder-1) is a former http://www.answers.com/topic/test-pilot, http://www.answers.com/topic/astronaut, and http://www.answers.com/topic/aquanaut. He is best known as one of the http://www.answers.com/topic/mercury-seven astronauts selected for http://www.answers.com/topic/mercury-program in April 1959. Created by the newly formed http://www.answers.com/topic/nasa, Project Mercury was the United States' answer to the http://www.answers.com/topic/union-of-soviet-socialist-republics's space program. This rivalry eventually became the http://www.answers.com/topic/space-race-1 - a contest between the two http://www.answers.com/topic/superpower to land the first men on the http://www.answers.com/topic/moon and return them safely to Earth. Scott Carpenter was the second American to orbit the Earth and the fourth American in space, following http://www.answers.com/topic/alan-shepard, http://www.answers.com/topic/gus-grissom, and http://www.answers.com/topic/john-glenn-jr. Carpenter and Glenn are the last living members of the Mercury Seven as of March 2009. == ==

Born in http://www.answers.com/topic/boulder-1, Carpenter moved to http://www.answers.com/topic/new-york-city-of-southern-new-york with his parents (Marion Scott Carpenter and Florence [néeNoxon] Carpenter) for the first two years of his life. (His father had been awarded a postdoctoral research post at http://www.answers.com/topic/columbia-university.) In the summer of 1927, young Carpenter returned to Boulder with his mother, then ill with http://www.answers.com/topic/tuberculosis. He was raised by his maternal grandparents in the family home at the corner of Aurora Avenue and Seventh Street, until his graduation from http://www.answers.com/topic/boulder-high-school in 1943. Upon graduation, he was accepted into the http://www.answers.com/topic/v-12-navy-college-training-program as an aviation cadet (V-12a), where he trained until the end of http://www.answers.com/topic/world-war-ii. He returned to Boulder in November 1945 to study http://www.answers.com/topic/aerospace-engineering at the http://www.answers.com/topic/university-of-colorado-at-boulder (CU). At the end of his senior year, he missed the final examination in http://www.answers.com/topic/heat-transfer-1, leaving him one requirement short of a degree. After his single 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." http://www.answers.com/topic/scott-carpenter#cite_note-1 On the eve of the http://www.answers.com/topic/korean-war, Carpenter was recruited by the http://www.answers.com/topic/united-states-navy-1's Direct Procurement Program (DPP), and reported to http://www.answers.com/topic/naval-air-station-pensacola in the fall of 1949 for pre-flight and primary flight training. He earned his wings on http://www.answers.com/topic/april-19, http://www.answers.com/topic/1951, in http://www.answers.com/topic/corpus-christi-texas. During his first tour of duty, on his first deployment, Carpenter flew http://www.answers.com/topic/p-2-neptune for Patrol Squadron Six on reconnaissance and ASW (anti-submarine warfare) missions during the http://www.answers.com/topic/korean-war. Forward-based in http://www.answers.com/topic/adak-alaska, Carpenter then flew surveillance missions along the Soviet and http://www.answers.com/topic/china-13 coasts during his second deployment; designated as PPC (patrol plane commander) for his third deployment, Lt. (j.g.) Carpenter was based with his squadron in http://www.answers.com/topic/guam. Scott Carpenter was then appointed to the http://www.answers.com/topic/united-states-naval-test-pilot-school, class 13, at http://www.answers.com/topic/naval-air-station-patuxent-river in 1954. He continued at Patuxent until 1957, working as a http://www.answers.com/topic/test-pilot in the Electronics Test Division; his next tour of duty was spent in http://www.answers.com/topic/monterey-california, at the Navy Line School. In 1958, Carpenter was named http://www.answers.com/topic/air-intelligence-officer for the http://www.answers.com/topic/uss-hornet-cv-12. Working through five onboard experiments dictated by the flight plan, Carpenter helped among other things to identify the mysterious 'fireflies' (which he renamed 'frostflies,' as they were in reality particles of frozen liquid around the craft), first observed by John Glenn during MA-6. Carpenter was the first American astronaut to eat solid food in space. http://www.answers.com/topic/scott-carpenter#cite_note-2 Unnoticed by ground control or pilot, however, this "overexpenditure of fuel" was caused by an intermittently malfunctioning pitch horizon scanner that would later malfunction at reentry. Still, NASA later reported that Carpenter had: "exercised his manual controls with ease in a number of [required] spacecraft maneuvers and had made numerous and valuable observations in the interest of space science. . . . By the time he drifted near Hawaii on the third pass, Carpenter had successfully maintained more than 40 percent of his fuel in both the automatic and the manual tanks. According to mission rules, this ought to be quite enough hydrogen peroxide, reckoned Kraft, to thrust the capsule into the retrofire attitude, hold it, and then to reenter the atmosphere using either the automatic or the manual control system."http://www.answers.com/topic/scott-carpenter#cite_note-3 At the retrofire event, however, the pitch horizon scanner malfunctioned once more, forcing Carpenter to manually control his reentry ("The malfunction of the pitch horizon scanner circuit [a component of the automatic control system] dictated that the pilot manually control the spacecraft attitudes during this event."http://www.answers.com/topic/scott-carpenter#cite_note-4 The PHS malfunction jerked the spacecraft off in yaw by 25 degrees to the right, accounting for 170 miles (270 km) of the overshoot; the delay caused by the automatic sequencer required Carpenter to fire the retrorockets manually. This effort took two pushes of the override button and accounted for another 15 to 20 miles (32 km) of the overshoot. The loss of thrust in the ripple pattern of the retros added another 60 miles (97 km), producing a 250-mile (400 km) overshoot. Forty minutes after splashdown, Carpenter was located in his life raft, safe and in good health, by Major Fred Brown, under the command of the Puerto Rico Air National Guard,http://www.answers.com/topic/scott-carpenter#cite_note-5, and recovered three hours later by the http://www.answers.com/topic/uss-intrepid-cv-11. Postflight analysis described the PHS malfunction as "mission critical" but noted that the pilot "adequately compensated" for "this anomaly . . . in subsequent inflight procedures."http://www.answers.com/topic/scott-carpenter#cite_note-6, confirming that that backup systems-human pilots-could succeed when automatic systems fail.[1] Some 21st-century memoirs http://www.answers.com/topic/scott-carpenter#cite_note-7 revived the simmering controversy over who or what, exactly, was to blame for the overshoot, suggesting, for example, that Carpenter was distracted by the science and engineering experiments dictated by the flight plan and by the well-reported fireflies phenomenon. Yet fuel consumption and other aspects of the vehicle operation were, during Project Mercury, as much, if not more, the responsibility of the ground controllers. Moreover, hardware malfunctions went unidentified, while organizational tensions between the astronaut office and the flight controller office - tensions that NASA did not resolve until the later http://www.answers.com/topic/project-gemini and http://www.answers.com/topic/apollo-program-1 programs - may account for much of the latter-day criticism of Carpenter's performance during his flight. Carpenter never flew another mission in space. After taking a leave of absence from the astronaut corps in the fall of 1963 to train for and participate in the Navy's Sealab program, Carpenter sustained a medically grounding injury to his left arm in a motorbike accident. After failing to regain mobility in his arm after two surgical interventions (in 1964 and 1967), Carpenter was ruled ineligible for spaceflight. He resigned from NASA in August 1967. In July 1964 in http://www.answers.com/topic/bermuda, Carpenter sustained a grounding injury from a motorbike accident while on leave from NASA to train for the Navy's http://www.answers.com/topic/sealab project. In 1965, for Sealab II, he spent 28 days living on the ocean floor off the coast of California. He returned to work at NASA as Executive Assistant to the Director of the http://www.answers.com/topic/lyndon-b-johnson-space-center, then returned to the Navy's http://www.answers.com/topic/mystic-class in 1967, based in http://www.answers.com/topic/bethesda-maryland, as a Director of Aquanaut Operations for Sealab III. 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. In 1962, Boulder community leaders dedicated Scott Carpenter Park in honor of native son turned Mercury astronaut. The Aurora 7 Elementary School, also in Boulder (at 3995 Aurora Ave.), was named for Carpenter's capsule.