For Spacious Skies: The Uncommon Journey of a Mercury AstronautHarcourt, 2002 - 370 pages 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 days of the space program, each mission helped to determine NASA's research progress, the efficiency of its design, and its status 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 all decisions 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. |
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