The Mercury Seven gather after survival training in Africa: from left, Gordon Cooper, Scott Carpenter, John Glenn, Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra and Deke Slayton. /NASA image
Navy Cmdr. M. Scott Carpenter died Thursday, Oct. 10, at 88.
Interviewing Scott Carpenter in 2000 as part of a millennium project at the Concord Monitor was unforgettable. I had picked Alan Shepard for my slice of the yearlong Monitor project, which profiled 100 N.H. historical figures.
After somehow obtaining the home phone number of America's fourth astronaut in space, I called Carpenter's house in Boulder, Colo. The then-75-year-old picked up the land-line receiver and proceeded to give me one of the most candid and thought-provoking interviews I've ever had the pleasure to scribble into a notebook. The following is the complete Monitor interview, most of which has never been published before:
CC: Tell me about the competition for that first American flight into space.
Carpenter: (Shepard) was a very bright and articulate guy, but that first flight should have been mine. I remember thinking at that time that we were like the Seven Musketeers, and the camaraderie was incredible. He and John were the ones with leadership ambition. ... Al had a need to excel and curiosity. ... For Al, it was the competition. He felt for his comrades but he also had a need to be better than anyone else. Everything he did was evidence of that. He was single-minded in his pursuit of the first flight.
CC: What was the reaction among the other Mercury Seven when Shepard was chosen to be first in space?
Carpenter: I think John was most disappointed.
CC: The early astronauts played a large design role in the space program. Was engineering a key skill for the Mercury Seven?
Carpenter: Engineering was a key skill, and we were all excellent.
CC: How would you characterize President Kennedy's role in the space program?
Carpenter: It was his enduring legacy. ... We were sort of contemporaries. I had tremendous respect for him. Without Kennedy, we wouldn't have done this. He inspired it. But that inspiration outlived him.
CC: Did the Mercury Seven run wild at Coco Beach?
Carpenter: The same behavior is found in any group of young men. It was inappropriate, but that's the way it was.
CC: What is the legacy of the U.S. space program?
Carpenter: We'll get more return on that investment than we will on any other investment of that time. It played a role in bringing the Soviets down. It helped establish American technological preeminence. We had a new view, a new way of looking at the world. That's the secret of this whole venture -- the new knowledge that we brought back. It's beyond valuing.
U.S. astronaut Scott Carpenter ready to go on Aurora 7 launch day, May 24, 1962. /NASA image
Carpenter was a fellow ocean exploration and science pioneer with Jacques Cousteau in the 1960s. /Image via rolexmagazine.com
Carpenter helped test the first generation of modern underwater technology as a member of the Navy SEA-LAB project in the 1960s. /U.S. Navy image
John Glenn and Carpenter prepare for the future senator from Ohio's historic first U.S. orbital flight on Feb. 20, 1962. /NASA image
The members of the Mercury Seven were accomplished pilots in the Navy, Air Force and Marines. /NASA image
Carpenter tugs at his pressure suit after his completing the U.S. space program's second orbital mission in the Aurora 7 Mercury capsule. /NASA image
After setting an undersea endurance record in the Navy's SEA-LAB submersible living quarters, Carpenter attempts to have a conversation with President Johnson. A recording of the exchange features the aquanaut's helium-induced Mickey Mouse voice and an obviously distracted commander in chief. /U.S. Navy image
The Mercury Seven remained close friends through their lives. With Carpenter's passing, Glenn is the last of the first astronauts. /image via upi.com
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