posted 05-16-2005 09:28 AM               

Hey come out everybody - its OK. Good point about Kraft. I enjoyed his book because it gave Gilruth the attention he so richly deserved - but like many authors he does seem to color history to his liking. I'm sure Kraft had a say in flight assignments but condenming your Dad for his Mercury flight while sparing Cernan after he flies a helicopter into a river shows his bias. (Yes I know those two events were almost a decade apart) The Sun just shown brighter on some than others.

posted 05-16-2005 11:14 AM               

Brilliant, for Kraft to have emphasized Gilruth. Have to confess I didn't notice this when I read the book (too busy clutching my heart in distress). My bad.

OT, but Gilruth deserves a great big adoring biography.

posted 05-16-2005 04:46 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by KC Stoever:
Thanks, Tim!

Brilliant, for Kraft to have emphasized Gilruth. Have to confess I didn't notice this when I read the book (too busy clutching my heart in distress). My bad.

.

---

Well actually Scott Carpenter's flight was one of the more exciting ones, particularly the re-entry.
Politics is a funny thing. It's everywhere, including The Manned Spaceflight Program.
When I read these comments about Ed White, Buzz Aldrin, Don Eisele, Scott Carpenter, Big Al, Deke etc. etc. it makes me think that without the contributions of all of these fine pilots, technicians, flight controllers etc., we never would have made it to the moon.
Let's give them all a BIG NAVY, ARMY, AIRFORCE, MARINES SALUTE!!!
(ps. Scott's wife was the prettiest)

posted 05-16-2005 06:14 PM               

Perhaps the relevant example when related to Scott Carpenter is the conversations which obviously took place inside the Mercury 7 about Scott's experience. Whatever the rights and wrongs, clearly Shepard, Slayton, Grissom and Schirra felt they were the pure test pilots of the group. While Shepard hadn't seen combat, his flight test experience made up for it. For Grissom his combat experience made up for his lack of eye-grabbing flight test work. Cooper was in their eyes and engineer, Glenn was too old/stiff/uneducated/unpopular (take your pick) while Carpenter was seen as unqualified. I think I'm right in saying that Carpenter choose to fly multi-engine when he could have selected fighters due to the risks, because he didn't want to leave his family without a father. That is an incredibly mature decision to make, but to Slayton/Shepard/Schirra/Grissom it was probably a totally alien decision.

Given all this it is possible that conversations/attitudes amongst these men could have influenced figures like Kraft, whether they realised it or not. We will never know the little details that are lost to time.

posted 05-16-2005 06:57 PM               

And good interpretation rests on solid facts. But we're OT now from the OP.

I will, with permission, start a new thread on the points J_Geenty raises.

I can sustain scraped knees and elbows here on cS, and cause some too, if anyone wants to play.

posted 05-16-2005 09:00 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by KC Stoever:

I welcome facts.

---

Great. There goes anything I have to add.

posted 05-16-2005 09:14 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by J_Geenty:
Whatever the rights and wrongs, clearly Shepard, Slayton, Grissom and Schirra felt they were the pure test pilots of the group.

---

Good point. Wally made a comment about Carpenter being "Black shoe Navy" (as opposed to "brown shoe" Naval Avaitors) and Slayton was clearly dismissive of Cooper's abilities ("I thought either I was in the wrong group or Gordo was" Slayton said when finding out about the Mercury selection.)

I believe Slayton's initial assessment of Cooper doomed him when Slayton was charged with crew selection. It's about all I can think of to explain how he could have demonstrated his ability and still be left behind.

Grissom was a buddy but also extremely capable so friendship didn't matter.

Wally Schirra always struck me as the guy who got shafted almost as bad as Cooper. His cool saved Gemini 6 (and maybe the program), then he flew the rendezvous using less fuel than projected. He did everything they asked perfectly but got stuck backing up his peer Grissom and was never really considered for a moon landing. He was clear that it was the politics - i.e. Shepard & Co. that wore him out.

I also think it's clear from what I've read Slayton ran scared around Shepard. I get the distinct impression he wasn't sure he was as good a pilot as Big Al.

posted 05-17-2005 03:50 AM               

This is where Gordo screws himself. No question on MA-9 he was superb. But not training hard and annoying key NASA management figures is not going to make you an automatic choice for future flights. Ironically Gordo seems to have needed to be alittle bit more of what he was accused of being by Shepard/Slayton et all...an engineer. If he had thrown himself into his ground assignments and training he might have turned out differently.

As for Wally, again, I think he made things difficult. While he flew GT-6 well, he had made it clear before hand that he didn't want to fly long duration and didn't want many science experients on the flight. Once the meeting with GT-7 was done he couldn't wait to get down. That is fine, but it makes people think that you're not so much a team player and can't be assigned to any mission that is required. Apparently Wally had also been making noises about leaving NASA since Gemini 6. Its tough to bring someone into your long term plans if you think they might leave at some point.

posted 05-17-2005 09:24 AM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by J_Geenty:
KC, hope my post didn't offend.

---

Nope. You didn't offend me at all. I'm offended, if that's the right word, when my friends here pretend I didn't post something controversial or caustic, or they avoid worthy debate or worry they'll hurt my feelings.

I mean, it's true I'm not part of what used to be the party over at ssh, but that doesn't mean I'm incapable of give-and-take!

Besides, the facts are on my side and spare most of my feelings.

I've got appointments this morning. But can respond to upthread posts probably tomorrow?

Best regards,

Kris

Note to self: "Reaction formation." Don't forget this psychiatric term.

posted 05-17-2005 10:47 AM               

<I believe Slayton's initial assessment of Cooper doomed him when Slayton was charged with crew selection. It's about all I can think of to explain how he could have demonstrated his ability and still be left behind.

No. While Deke never considered Gordo as capable as many other astronauts, he still found him qualified. It was Deke who pushed to assign Gordo to MA-9 when Williams and others were ready to hand the mission to Shepard. "Either fly him, or send him back to the Air Force."

As to whether Gordo "demonstrated his ability," remember that a specific mission is only a fraction of an astronaut's career. See Kris Stoever's comment upthread about areas where Gordo fell short...

posted 05-17-2005 11:40 AM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Michael Cassutt:

"Either fly him, or send him back to the Air Force."

As to whether Gordo "demonstrated his ability," remember that a specific mission is only a fraction of an astronaut's career. See (John Geenty's) comment upthread about areas where Gordo fell short...

Michael Cassutt

---

Well, you spoke to the man and I didn't. I think the "fly him or send him back" gag may have been a way to show NASA administrators how embarassing the situation of passing over an astronaut would be, at least during Mercury.

I just got the impression Slayton worried, in his heart of hearts, that Shepard was a better pilot. Again, you spoke to him and I didn't.

Hey! Want to hear my idea for a TV series? It's called "Lunar Proctologist" and is about a doctor's adventures in Outer Space!

No?? How about "CSI: Moon"?

posted 05-17-2005 08:44 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by #204:

(ps. Scott's wife was the prettiest)

---

You have to stop thinking of women in this way.

Instead of focusing on what society has determined are "good looks", first consider a woman's intelligence: is she smart enough to see through your bullcrap excuses?

Second, think about her emotional stability. Will she be mature if a pecidillo occurs or lose her mind and start throwing stuff?

Finally, look where she carries her right hand. If you're not careful she'll drop one into your labonza!

So, you see, looks aren't everything.

posted 05-18-2005 09:57 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Duke Of URL:
You have to stop thinking of women in this way.

[This message has been edited by Duke Of URL (edited May 17, 2005).]

---

Better women than men...try telling that to the "ORIGINAL SEVEN".

posted 05-18-2005 12:47 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by J_Geenty:
One of the problems trying to understand the fine points of astronaut relationships is that no matter how good an autobiography or interview is, it never really tells the story. We never get to hear the whispered conversations that took place, long since forgotten but which may well have created subconcious attitudes and beliefs.

---

I'll take Geenty's points here in pieces, beginning with the above, as I find it representative of general interest among cS types in authentic stories.

Historians (and I am but a caveman) look for authenticity too, as they want to tell true stories in a compelling and fresh way. So they read through the available literature: primary sources are best--transcripts, first-person accounts, and contemporaneous oral histories like those cited in THIS NEW OCEAN.

When we learn of rival accounts, or what I call competing narratives--say, Kraft's ca. 2001 "the man malfunctioned" vs. Carpenter's 1962 "the machine malfunctioned), professional historians will go back to the early documentary record (transcripts, debriefings, etc.), weigh the evidence, sift motive, consider bias, and report accordingly.

In the case of MA-7, my ever-ready example, the contemporaneous accounts were in accord. Kraft's formal 1962 account backed Carpenter's. In 1962 everyone agreed, formally, what caused the MA-7 overshoot.

Did Kraft have an informal whispered version of MA-7, which would advance his individual vision for NASA? Sure. He published it in 2001. (Here's where reaction formation--that psychiatric term--is at work, of which more later.)

Anyway, back to the professional historian, who, finally satisfied he has an exhaustive understanding of events in question, will cobble together a narrative that seeks to supply what we all want: the real story--which Geenty complains we readers rarely get.

Geenty says he wants to hear the "whispered conversations," believing, it appears, that whispered conversations become internalized as subconscious motivators in formalized policy or personnel decisions. (Doesn't sound like Gilruth's style to me, BWT.)

I would argue a couple of points here:

First, we have heard the whispered stories. Afficionados trade them like baseball cards; they are embellished in the re-telling.

Second, whispered conversations may advance the goals of the co-whisperers (and destroy the careers of their victims), but their efficacy doesn't make the whispered accounts true.

It merely proves that whisperers can be vicious. Play the game our way, or don't play at all. That's the only thing whispered conversations tell us.

We learn a whole lot more from the formal discussions, where real men (and women) speak up and minutes are kept.

Real men also write memoranda and postflight reports laying out their reservations at the most opportune times, when future lives and missions can be spared.

And when they do not speak or write in self-defense, real men let their actions speak for them.

posted 05-18-2005 01:47 PM               

We are discussing the Seven during Project Mercury, not in their legacy-burnishing accounts decades later. And then, ca. 1959-1963, Geenty gets it rather wrong.

John Glenn was primus inter pares among seven exceptional men and test pilots. A lot of WWII vets left college (and lost a credential) to fight in the war. To describe them as "uneducated" is hardly accurate, particularly in view of the evaluative tools the 1959 selection process used to i.d. smarts and engineering knowledge among the finalists.

Schirra's combat experience was extraordinary, and this counted for a great deal.

A little-known and -heralded fact, not lost on the 1959 Selection Committee? Carpenter too was a combat veteran--yeah, yeah, of maritime patrol planes, but a combat veteran nonetheless. With a great record at Patuxent.

(And I simply can't believe any colleague of Carpenter's id'd him as black-shoe Navy (Duke, is this true??); out of a 20-some-year career in the Navy, Carpenter spent all of 6 months connected to a ship, the USS Hornet, five months of it in drydock! Carpenter flew patrol planes too big for carriers; he took off from Navy and USAF airfields.)

The interesting thing about Deke vis-a-vis Carpenter? Deke flew bombers during World War II, not fighters!

Deke's elevation to the rarefied flight test group at Edwards--before he was selected for Project Mercury--was perhaps the sweetest professional vindication of his life.

Is there something a little too much about Deke's chest-thumping at Langley? To me, it speaks more about a man compensating, among rivals he feared would get the assignments. And his burrowing in with the ground control, becoming a management favorite? An astute career move, while Al and Gus and John moved to the forefront.

All the men were rivals. Some were better rivals than others

And Shepard? I agree with Duke. At Langley, and later at Houston, Deke and Al were not really peers.

Glenn was too ld/stiff/uneducated/unpopular (take your pick) while Carpenter was seen as unqualified.

These two statements are, I'm sorry, bunk!! I'll follow up with the wherefores below.

posted 05-18-2005 02:29 PM               

The beer-chat conversations held decades ago can and be just as important in explaining why people formed the opinions they held as the open facts we have. While this doesn't sound like Gilruth, it does sound like certain others.

I am not looking for pure factual truth here, I am looking for why were opinions formed, at the time and after. I agree with you that the whisphers are seldom true, but the fact that they exist(ed) is important.

posted 05-18-2005 02:42 PM               

They all carried views of what a test pilot was around with them and the four of them fit this image. Glenn had some of the credientials but didn't fit the image. Scott Carpenter certainly didn't fit the image. He only had 200 hours in jets when he was selected! Do you think that to Slayton/Shepard and others that sounds impressive? I believe Scott Carpenter had every right to be in the Mercury 7 and was an outstanding candidate, but I doubt the first reaction of the rest of the group was the same.

And it seems clear they considered Gordo to be an engineer.

posted 05-18-2005 04:01 PM               

I disagree with the thrust of your argument. I concede that your caricatures of the astronauts in question have some--and I mean some--resonance.

But reality is more complicated than that, and historical accounts and our discussions here must reflect that complexity!

You're reasoning, if I understand you properly, that the creation at NASA of in- and out-groups was formed as much by beer-chat as by the desires (and abilities) the astronauts themselves articulated and demonstrated over time.

These desires and ambitions were expressed in word and action. They can be documented. Performance too during training can be and was quantified and documented. I believe the process to have been professional--a real tribute to Deke's judgment and NASA's commitment to excellence.

So, first, you equate beer chat with quantifiable performances, and then you omit salient facts.

That's the reason for a Mercury-Gemini-Apollo timeline! C'mon!

Ca. MA-9, spring 1963: Glenn and Shepard both lobbied for the MA-10 flight that Gilruth was determined would not be flown.

Neither man got the flight that was never made. Meanwhile two new astronaut groups have come aboard. Can someone chime in here with the numbers? Nine and what. How many new guys?

Fall 1963, Carpenter meets Cousteau, goes on inactive astronaut duty to return to parent command for Sealab development.

Nov. 1963-Jan. 1964, Kennedy assassinated, a stricken Glenn resigns from NASA to run for U.S. Senate seat.

March 1964, Glenn sustains grounding injury; regains flight status for the Marines 11 mos. later.

July 1964 Carpenter sustains grounding injury; never, to my knowledge, regains flight status, not for NASA, not for the Navy.

In the meantime, that spring of 1964?, active-duty astronauts are training and vying for flights.

So, mid-1964, before a single Gemini flight has been flown, Glenn has resigned. Carpenter has virtually resigned (and is grounded in any event). And forty years later, you're concluding, falsely, that somehow their credentials, and not their life circumstances, were to blame?

posted 05-18-2005 04:35 PM               

quote:

---

They [the early astronauts] all carried views of what a test pilot was around with them and the four of them fit this image. Glenn had some of the credientials but didn't fit the image. Scott Carpenter certainly didn't fit the image. He only had 200 hours in jets when he was selected! Do you think that to Slayton/Shepard and others that sounds impressive?

---

Carpenter had 500 hours, IIRC. I've seen the 200 hours figure somewhere, which I believe is inaccurate. Your assessment of Glenn's credentials is wildly inaccurate. Allan Gamble's account of encountering Glenn's service jacket, in January 1959, is enough to lay this old canard to rest.

My sense, too, is that you've fixated on standard chest-thumping and assorted other male posturing and propaganda.

What images and self-images the astronauts carried around with them is immaterial.

They were pilots. In one notable psych study, of a class of 500 numerically ranked aviators, the Navy asked individual pilots to rank themselves. Each of them replied they were "the best" in the class. Number one.

That's the mindset. They need to believe they're the best.

The truth? The performances? The numerical rankings? All that's something else--not quite admitted to consciousness. Goes to confidence, that golden, precious thing that must be preserved at all costs.

Besides, these test pilots? They were on beyond Zebra (beyond standard test pilot self-images) in 1962. They were astronauts, creating a new profession. Some of whom might fly to and land on the moon. Walk there. And Carpenter and Glenn were the very image of an astronaut who might do that.

posted 05-18-2005 05:27 PM               

The second reply. The images that the astronauts carry around with are of vital importance if astronauts end up in decision-making positions and when they come to write down or talk about their memories of events. Again, I am not suggesting that test-pilot prejudices are correct. I am saying that they exist. When these men were selected the astronaut business did not exist. They evaluated each other on their service history and their attitudes.

Now it is possible as you say that the reasons for the anti-Glenn/Carpenter stance is due to the fact they were highly capable rivals and they felt threatened. True. But the test pilot attitude and belief system was not a myth. If it is real to them, then it has an impact.

The train of thought that I have is the following. Slayton/Schirra/Grissom/Shepard hold views of the others based on their "chest-thumping and assorted other male posturing and propaganda" issues. They talk about these beliefs. These beliefs are passed down through the years and possibly help to explain why views are held about the performance of, for example, Scott Carpenter, which is not backed up by fact.

Just to clear up. I do not conform to the view that Carpenter and Glenn should not have been in the Mercury 7. By all accounts Carpenter was a truly outstanding candidate. I am trying to understand the factors that cannot be found from looking at test results and performance.

"And forty years later, you're concluding, falsely, that somehow their credentials, and not their life circumstances, were to blame?"

No. I am suggesting that the attitudes some of their peers held towards them contributes to an understanding of how history has been written by those same peers.

"Can someone chime in here with the numbers? Nine and what. How many new guys?"

14.

"I believe the process to have been professional--a real tribute to Deke's judgment and NASA's commitment to excellence."

So do I. However I also know as a fact that one factor which influenced how Deke felt about an astronaut was his flying skills and background. You only have to look into Elliot See, or the way that test pilots were seen as superior to non-test pilot astronauts during the late Gemini, early Apollo era to see this.

"My sense, too, is that you've fixated on standard chest-thumping and assorted other male posturing and propaganda."

LOL, maybe I am. However, these things have an impact on the way history has been written.

I hope this has clarified my views a little.

posted 05-18-2005 05:31 PM               

The examples of Cooper, See, Bean and others all have serious reasons behind them.

John

posted 05-18-2005 06:27 PM               

Anyway, I think you make some good points.

Here's what I think: Something happened as NASA moved from its uniquely visionary, nimble, creative NACA roots at Langley AFB to the behemoth it would become at Houston. There was an institutional and philosphical shift. It was a shift away from exploration and science toward hardware.

I would argue that this shift in emphasis and vision--not the credentials of any particular astronaut--is responsible (perhaps in malign ways even) for the personnel decisions we're debating on this thread.

What is true, and Andrew Smith nods in this direction in his Moon Dust (which is really a cultural history, not a technical treatment of Apollo), is that with this shift in emphasis and vision, Deke deselected charismatic, articulate extraverts in favor of, I don't know, the ABBGC factor (anybody but Glenn and Carpenter--anyone, like G and C, with more than one power base: all the goodies would flow from Deke/Kraft).

As a result, we sent men to the moon who when they came back couldn't describe--didn't have the lexicon to tell us--where they'd been [[on edit: and why we should go back, or on to Mars even.]]

This is broad brush treatment, as I have to go make dinner. And I'm sure there are very nice articulate Apollo astronauts with a lexicon suited for the wonders of a moon landing.

posted 05-18-2005 07:15 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by KC Stoever:

As a result, we sent men to the moon who when they came back they couldn't describe--didn't have the lexicon to tell us--where they'd been. This is broad brush treatment, as I have to go make dinner. And I'm sure there are very nice articulate Apollo astronauts with a lexicon suited for the wonders of a moon landing.

---

posted 05-18-2005 08:51 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Captain Apollo:
Anyone want to come out and agree with me that Slayton was possibly the most malign influence in the programme because of his favouritist selection policies? The George Abbey of his day...

---

posted 05-18-2005 08:53 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by KSCartist:
Kris -

I'm not sure where (and I'll research it) but I do remmber the black shoe vs brown shoe comment.
Tim

---

posted 05-18-2005 08:58 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by KC Stoever:
Geenty writes:[b]

(And I simply can't believe any colleague of Carpenter's id'd him as black-shoe Navy (Duke, is this true??)

---

posted 05-19-2005 10:30 AM               

quote:

---

The "Black Shoe Navy" comment was in "Schirra's Space".

---

Thanks, Duke. Hmmmmm. "Black-shoe Navy," in Schirra's Space?

I just called my mom, who is better-versed in the permutations of Navy lingo.

Her take: "Impossible that Wally said it."

Then I said, but it's in Wally's book. Duke said so. She then said, "The interviewer misheard him, or wrote it down wrong. Or a coauthor misunderstood a joke . . . ." Her take was that it was just one of those errors that creeps for the most part innocently into books.

In Collins's excellent book (Carrying the Fire, is that the title?), for example, even Collins (or his researcher?) gets Carpenter's resume wrong, calling him a transport plane pilot.

I mean, that's way harsh! (Begin minor rant.) Patrol plane pilots are the eyes and ears of the Navy--and have a proud combat tradition. Carpenter's C.O. at Atsugi, during Korea, Guy Howard (TPS 2) had flown with the legendary Patrol Wing 10 during the early months of WWII, which actually fought their PBYs against Zeroes. I mean, talk about guts and skill!(End minor rant.)

My point is that errors creep into books that readers expect to be accurate. They become reference works for writers later on. Error is repeated until it becomes an ersatz fact. I suspect this happened with Wally's "black shoe" comment.

Black-shoe is fleet, or shipboard, Navy. And of course Carpenter was aviation from the get-go: by definition brown shoe.

When the the CNO summoned Carpenter to the Pentagon for Phase II of the 1959 selection process, it is true that Carpenter was attached to the USS Hornet. But Shepard and Schirra had spent time, in their brown shoes, aboard ships too.

Carpenter was the air intelligence officer (a berth that grew out of his patrol plane background in surveillance, his Electronics Test work at Patuxent, followed by postgraduate air intelligence training at Monterey). He would command the Hornet's aviators on whatever aviators do when they go out to sea.

But his air intelligence berth at the Hornet didn't render him black shoe. Nothing could. Not even his time at Sealab.

posted 05-19-2005 11:05 AM               

quote:

---

Perhaps so, but at least they were able to get there and back in one piece.

---

Yes. The ostensible reason for the ABBGC factor in crew selection. But this suggests, or is rooted in unreasoning bias that, good Lord, if you gave Glenn command of an Apollo mission, he would fly toward the sun?

Absent the Kennedy assassination, and absent Glenn's resignation from NASA, there's no doubt in my mind that Glenn would have gone toe to toe with Shepard for the plum assignments.

And with Shepard's grounding due to Meniere's disease, Glenn would have gotten them, and NASA would have been a better, more popular and visionary organization as a result.

posted 05-19-2005 11:08 AM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by KC Stoever:
Thanks, Duke. Hmmmmm. "Black-shoe Navy," in Schirra's Space?

Then I said, but it's in Wally's book. Duke said so.

---

Hoo, boy! Using me as a source is like using the Boston Strangler as a neck masseur.

posted 05-19-2005 11:59 AM               

quote:

---

Gene Cernan was probably the most articulate of the group as far as his personal experience was concerned, but I think that most of the others, in their own personal ways, were able to express themselves adequately

---

#204, I'm sure you're right. My mom thought the world of Cernan. But the portraits in Smith's Moon Dust are a good bit less flattering than yours.

Perhaps it was that the men in question were being interviewed not by a peer but by a journalist--they had no shared language and had different emotions about the program than those expressed by Smith.

This takes me back to my NASA-shift-in-vision argument. As the program shifted toward hardware--jettisoning the Gee Whiz of spaceflight or what some viewed as the bells-and-whistles of science and exploration--the world watched the moon landings with rapt interest but increasing questions. Why are we doing this?

posted 05-19-2005 12:56 PM               

You are so right about Glenn. Look what he did for the shuttle program with just that one trip.

The place was mobbed, just like the old days! Every space journalist from every network and corner of the globe was there. Why?? Because we were going to do something different this time???

NO!!! John Glenn was flying! It was John Glenn!!

posted 05-19-2005 01:05 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by KC Stoever:
#204, I'm sure you're right. My mom thought the world of Cernan. But the portraits in Smith's Moon Dust are a good bit less flattering than yours.

Without articulate visionary types, the kind whose eyes light up, even when they speak to journalists, NASA lost its best ambassadors, and among its best pilots too. IMHO.

---

posted 05-19-2005 02:35 PM               

If the test pilot credentials of Glenn and Carpenter were, as you report, truly dissed by your self-described "true blue" test pilots (among them NASA decision makers like Warren North and Charlie Donlan), how is it that Glenn and Carpenter snagged the U.S.'s first two orbital missions?

You would probably reply, Well, they were fine for Project Mercury, but not for etc. etc.

But how do you know? Because some space program veterans said that's what they thought, or heard, thirty or forty years ago? I say, be more skeptical than that.

If you had the credentials for Mercury, then you had them for the lunar program. It was that simple. Deke may have construed it differently. But I cannot imagine him saying to John Glenn: Hey, buddy. You're out. Glenn would have laughed at him. Nor could Deke have been able to say anything like that to Carpenter. It simply couldn't have happened.

Here's where that term, reaction formation comes in. It has a corollary in Psalms or Proverbs, I think; and Chris Kraft shows a nearly pathological reaction formation response to Scott Carpenter, among others--they're all in the index of his book.

The Old Testament version of reaction formation observes that "the lying tongue hates the one it wounds." Something like that. Reaction formation. You hurt someone wrongly (say the way Kraft hurt Carpenter with a whisper campaign documented in THE RIGHT STUFF), then you begin to hate him, or tear him down even more, to justify the damage you've caused, and so on and so on.

The worse the damage, the harder the hate becomes. And the more urgently the hater believes in the justice, the rightness, of his hatreds.

Over time, of course, you can lose control of the harm you have done to the injured party. The harm takes on a life of its own.

The harmer responds with rationalizations after the fact: well, I knew he wasn't qualified, stable, etc., etc. And before you know it, the injured party is a transport plane pilot who can't run an Atlas abort simulation. And is probably retarded too. And he owns an ugly dog.

This is reaction formation, a dynamic, evolving psychological response to moral or reputational damage you have wrought over time.

It's kind of like your "opinion formation" created by whispered conversations--reaction formation in groups is bolstered by intense pressures to conform. In time a kind of group think developed at NASA about out-group members--nonconformists like Carpenter (Wolfe describes this at end of the RIGHT STUFF).

So, I guess you and I agree, in a way. The remaining difference between us is skepticism. I am highly skeptical about the accuracy of the opinions thus formed. It's what people said, sure. But the real reasons, or motives, were unvoiced. What were they? I think they had to do with power and control.

Would it be accurate for me to say you take them at face value?

Best regards,

Kris