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  A second mission for Scott Carpenter

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Author Topic:   A second mission for Scott Carpenter
Duke Of URL
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Posts: 1316
From: Syracuse, NY
Registered: Jan 2005

posted 08-01-2006 10:34 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Duke Of URL   Click Here to Email Duke Of URL     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Okay, so Scott Carpenter made the one flight and then wiped out and went off flight status so he never flew again in space.

But suppose he had filled in Deke Slayton's questionnaire and requested a Gemini mission, then stayed in the rotation for Apollo? He was younger than Al Shepard at the time Shepard was aiming for a return to flight, so age wouldn't have prevented a mission during the Moon landings.

So, let's say Deke Slayton actually tells Chris Kraft "It's not your decision to make" and puts Carpenter into the rotation. What sorts of missions would Carpenter request and then dynamically pioneer?

KSCartist
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From: Titusville, FL USA
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posted 08-01-2006 12:18 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for KSCartist   Click Here to Email KSCartist     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
My guess is a "J" mission landing. Then command of Skylab.

I've always thought he was well suited for a long duration science mission.

John Charles
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From: Houston, Texas, USA
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posted 08-02-2006 09:41 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for John Charles     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Nice sentiment, and appropriate. Except...

In our timeline, the first two Skylab CDRs came from a single H-class mission, Apollo 12. Note that Conrad was named to head the Skylab branch of the astronaut office (and thus, in line to command the first mission) in June 1970. The Skylab crews started training in Dec. 1970. Both of these occurred before the first J-class mission, Apollo 15 (July 1971).

So, Carpenter might have done one or the other, but not both (IMHO).

Duke Of URL
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posted 08-03-2006 05:29 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Duke Of URL   Click Here to Email Duke Of URL     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Well, Carpenter was known as the premier physical specimen of the Mercury 7, leading me to wonder how he stacked up against other astronaut toughies like Ed White, so a long-duration spaceflight would have been no thing for him. Maybe the last, 84 day, Skylab would have been an ideal flight. Yes?

carmelo
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From: Messina, Sicilia, Italia
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posted 08-04-2006 03:30 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for carmelo   Click Here to Email carmelo     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
In my opinion commander on Gemini 7, after commander on Apollo 12 and commander on Skylab 2.

Duke Of URL
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posted 08-04-2006 05:24 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Duke Of URL   Click Here to Email Duke Of URL     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
You think like I do about Scott Carpenter. An explorer more than just a get-up-and-get-back flyer.

I think he would have been best on long duration flights too, but maybe Skylab 4 not 2 and better a science mission like 15-16-17. I think he would have done a much better job than Al Shepard on Apollo 14 because I believe he would have applied more of himself to the geology training.

I wonder if Deke Slayton would have pushed a flight-ready Carpenter aside as he did Cooper. According to many sources there were issues with Cooper's seeming nonchalance about training (always countered by stellar in-flight performance) and Carpenter seemed like a dedicated man.

I wonder if Carpenter ever gave any thought to which missions he would have flown? Probably not; he doesn't seem like the sort to dwell on thoughts like that.

moorouge
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posted 07-31-2009 12:13 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for moorouge   Click Here to Email moorouge     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Come on guys! It's all hypothetical. In July 1964 Carpenter had a motor cycle accident in Bermuda that left him with reduced mobility in his left elbow. This cost him his flight status. He was given release in 1965 to take part in the Sealab experiment and returned to NASA to see the Lunar Module through it's early design stages. He finally resigned from NASA in 1967 to follow up the Sealab work for the Navy.

So, there was never any question of him making another flight.

Duke Of URL
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From: Syracuse, NY
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posted 07-31-2009 02:36 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Duke Of URL   Click Here to Email Duke Of URL     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
That's what's great about these forums. They give us a place to speculate and our heroes never get old.

I, for one, could never imagine when John Glenn went up that within 8 years I'd have a wife who'd bash my skull with a frying pan.

So forgive us our daydreaming.

Delta7
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posted 07-31-2009 03:11 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Delta7   Click Here to Email Delta7     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I always figured had Carpenter stayed on the active flight list, he'd be a natural for one of the endurance flights, Gemini V or VII.

Duke Of URL
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posted 07-31-2009 04:10 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Duke Of URL   Click Here to Email Duke Of URL     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
And if the Apollo Applications program had gone as planned he would have found a niche there.

But he's a guy who looks forward rather than back, and like moorouge says this is all moonbeams anyhow.

ilbasso
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From: Greensboro, NC USA
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posted 07-31-2009 04:12 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for ilbasso   Click Here to Email ilbasso     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
So, if Bassett, See, Freeman, Williams, Grissom, White, and Chaffee had not died, Glenn not decided to leave NASA, Collins not had the bone spur removed in 1968, Slayton's atrial fibrillation corrected 6 years and 2 months earlier than it was, and Apollo 18, 19, and 20 not been cancelled, who would have been the 2nd shift CAPCOM on Apollo 16?

Delta7
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From: Bluffton IN USA
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posted 07-31-2009 04:18 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Delta7   Click Here to Email Delta7     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by ilbasso:
...who would have been the 2nd shift CAPCOM on Apollo 16?
Curt Michel, of course! DUH!

KC Stoever
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From: Denver, CO USA
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posted 07-31-2009 06:58 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for KC Stoever   Click Here to Email KC Stoever     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
It's really nice to see facts seep in to NASA lore -- in this case, the fact of the Carpenter accident in Bermuda in July 1964. It healed into a grounding injury.

On file at the archives at NASA HQ are newspaper accounts of two surgeries to free up his left arm so that it could rotate properly (his ulna and radius had fused). No luck. If I recall correctly, the second and final intervention was in January 1967? He retired from NASA in August of that year and resigned his commission from the Navy two years later, after Sealab III was shut down following the accidental death of an aquanaut.

AstroAutos
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posted 07-31-2009 08:13 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for AstroAutos   Click Here to Email AstroAutos     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
It's a good question which Carpenter answers on his website:
After your Mercury flight, why didn't you go on to fly Gemini or Apollo missions?

When I came back from my flight [Aurora 7, May 24, 1962], I had been single-minded about earth orbit for too long and had been so heavily involved with preparations for both John's flight [Friendship 7 MA-6 -- editor's note] and then my own that I wanted, and needed, a change of pace and didn't want to get back in to flight rotation right away.

I had flown in space, achieving a goal I'd had since I learned about Project Mercury in 1959. Sealab at the time was a more attractive opportunity for me. It was a new challenge.

After a while, restored by the underwater work, I tried to regain my flight status. I thought a lunar landing would be a rewarding challenge. But the operation to repair the injury to my left arm did not succeed. I was medically grounded. I couldn't have a Gemini or Apollo flight, even if I wanted one.

I too think (if the accident hadn't happened of course) he would have been good for one of the Gemini long-duration flights, and by the sound of this he really wanted a lunar landing. I think he would have been a wonderful choice to walk on the moon if he could have done.

Fra Mauro
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posted 08-03-2009 12:40 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Fra Mauro   Click Here to Email Fra Mauro     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
If he had been healthy, how about Gemini 5, then Apollo 7?

Lou Chinal
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posted 08-03-2009 05:30 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Lou Chinal   Click Here to Email Lou Chinal     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I always envisoned him on Gemini 4 and Apollo 8. A real dynamic pioneer.

Max Q
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From: Whyalla South Australia
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posted 08-03-2009 08:08 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Max Q   Click Here to Email Max Q     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Didn't he have real attention to detail issues? At least Kraft thought so. There was a whole chapter in his book "The Man Malfunctioned".

kr4mula
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From: Cinci, OH
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posted 08-03-2009 11:12 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for kr4mula   Click Here to Email kr4mula     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Understatement of the week, courtesy of Scott Carpenter: "I thought a lunar landing would be a rewarding challenge."

LOL, uh, yeah!

Duke Of URL
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From: Syracuse, NY
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posted 08-03-2009 01:01 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Duke Of URL   Click Here to Email Duke Of URL     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Max Q:
Didn't he have real attention to detail issues? At least Kraft thought so. There was a whole chapter in his book "The Man Malfunctioned".
Actually, he was doing what he thought the mission was about.

Kraft is a difficult man who takes a position, sometimes contrary to the facts, and says them over and over.

KC Stoever
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From: Denver, CO USA
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posted 08-04-2009 11:47 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for KC Stoever   Click Here to Email KC Stoever     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
The pilot of MA-7 has responded rather forcefully to Chris Kraft's charge that the man (Scott Carpenter) malfunctioned.

The short reply, which everyone seems to like, is Scott Carpenter's letter to the editor of the New York Times Book Review back in April 2001.

Henry S. F. Cooper had reviewed the Kraft book in March 2001 with, it appeared, slight knowledge of the United States' second manned orbital flight. Carpenter supplied much-needed context and, finally, a reasoned response from the man actually flying the mission.

That was Carpenter's short reply.

His long reply can be found in his autobiography, For Spacious Skies: The Uncommon Journey of a Mercury Astronaut, published in 2003. It is my reply, as coauthor and daughter, to the extent the book adopts a polemical tone. But Carpenter accepted as necessary this editorial decision to engage. It was he who fleshed out the obscure technical story of a malfunctioning pitch horizon scanner and the canard about a distracted astronaut.

The merits of Kraft's views, and Carpenter's, have been worked out pretty well, here on cS and elsewhere, in innumerable posts and conversations.

Delta7
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From: Bluffton IN USA
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posted 08-04-2009 05:16 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Delta7   Click Here to Email Delta7     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Duke Of URL:
Kraft is a difficult man who takes a position, sometimes contrary to the facts, and says them over and over.
Being that recently, on the 40th anniversary commemoration of Apollo 7, Kraft all but publicly apologized to Walt Cunningham for his "treatment" after the mission, that's probably not too far off the mark.

kr4mula
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From: Cinci, OH
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posted 08-06-2009 01:04 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for kr4mula   Click Here to Email kr4mula     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by KC Stoever:
The short reply, which everyone seems to like, is Scott Carpenter's letter to the editor of the New York Times Book Review back in April 2001.
For those interested, the letter from Scott Carpenter can be found here.

Duke Of URL
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From: Syracuse, NY
Registered: Jan 2005

posted 08-06-2009 01:32 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Duke Of URL   Click Here to Email Duke Of URL     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
A true gentleman's response and one more reason to admire the Dynamic Pioneer.

I'm more prone to the Joe Pesci school of conflict resolution. That can be big fun but it's not always efficacious.

All times are CT (US)

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