'Godspeed': Scott Carpenter, 2nd U.S. astronaut in orbit, dies at 88

AP

Show Caption Hide Caption Scott Carpenter, second American to orbit Earth, dies at 88 Scott Carpenter, one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts, and the second American to orbit the Earth has died. He was 88. By Tim Walters Posted Oct. 10, 2013

Scott Carpenter was part of NASA%27s original astronaut team%2C Mercury 7

He went into orbit and overshot his landing upon his return%2C giving the nation a scare

An explorer of depths as well as heights%2C he spent 30 days under the ocean in 1965

DENVER — Astronaut Scott Carpenter, the second American to orbit the Earth and first person to explore both the heights of space and depths of the ocean, died Thursday after a stroke. He was 88.

Along with John Glenn, Carpenter was one of the last two surviving original Mercury 7 astronauts for the fledgling U.S. space program.

His wife, Patty Barrett, said Carpenter died of complications from a September stroke in a Denver hospice. He lived in Vail, Colo.

"We're going to miss him," she said.

Carpenter was launched into space from Cape Canaveral on May 24, 1962, and completed three orbits around Earth in his space capsule, the Aurora 7, which he named after the celestial event. It was just a coincidence, Carpenter said, that he grew up in Boulder, Colo., on the corner of Aurora Avenue and 7th Street.

But even before Carpenter ventured into space, he made history. On Feb. 20, 1962, he gave the historic send-off to his predecessor in orbit: "Godspeed, John Glenn." It was a spur of the moment phrase, Carpenter later said.

"In those days, speed was magic because that's all that was required ... and nobody had gone that fast," Carpenter explained. "If you can get that speed, you're home-free, and it just occurred to me at the time that I hope you get your speed. Because once that happens, the flight's a success."

Delivered in what NBC News correspondent Jay Barbree called a baritone "voice of God," Carpenter's call from the Launch Complex 14 blockhouse offered a note of reassurance and prayer as Glenn lifted off at the height of the space race, in a rocket about which there were safety concerns.

"We were pretty much on pins and needles," said Jack King of Cocoa Beach, then NASA's chief of public information for what became Kennedy Space Center. "It really hit me at the time."

Carpenter's turn came a little more three months later.

At a time when astronauts achieved fame on par with rock stars, folks across the country sat glued to their TV screens, anxiously awaiting the outcome of Carpenter's ride. He overshot his landing by 288 miles, giving NASA and the nation an hourlong scare that he might not have made it back alive.

He was found sitting in a life raft attached to his capsule, eating a Baby Ruth candy bar, Barbree remembered.

"He was a cool customer," said Barbree.

The fallout from that missed landing was a factor that kept NASA from launching Carpenter into space again. So he went from astronaut to "aquanaut" and lived at length on the sea floor — the only man to ever formally explore the two frontiers.

Carpenter was as proud of his aquanaut experience as he was of his pioneering space career, Barbree said.

King called Carpenter "a very special guy and a key part of the program."

"We're now down to one of the seven original astronauts, the seven standard bearers who really led us in the space program right at the start," he said.

For the veteran Navy officer, flying in space or diving to the ocean floor was more than a calling. In 1959, soon after being chosen one of NASA's pioneering seven astronauts, Carpenter wrote about his hopes, concluding: "This is something I would willingly give my life for."

"Curiosity is a thread that goes through all of my activity," he told a NASA historian in 1999. "Satisfying curiosity ranks No. 2 in my book behind conquering a fear."

His four hours, 39 minutes and 32 seconds of weightlessness were "the nicest thing that ever happened to me," Carpenter told a NASA historian. "The zero-g sensation and the visual sensation of spaceflight are transcending experiences and I wish everybody could have them."

"He was totally relaxed," said Lee Solid of Merritt Island, Fla., then an Atlas program propulsion engineer who worked with Carpenter in the run-up to Glenn's launch. "He just was one of those really smart, sharp guys. He was very professional."

Carpenter's trip led to many discoveries about spacecraft navigation and space itself, such as that space offers almost no resistance, which he found out by trailing a balloon.

Barbree called Carpenter the first scientist astronaut because of the many experiments he performed.

"All the other guys went up just for the ride and to fly," he said. "He was there to learn what he could learn."

Carpenter said astronauts in the Mercury program found most of their motivation from the space race with the Russians. When he completed his orbit of the Earth, he said he thought: "Hooray, we're tied with the Soviets," who had completed two manned orbits at that time.

But things started to go wrong on re-entry. He was low on fuel and a key instrument that tells the pilot which way the capsule is pointing malfunctioned, forcing Carpenter to manually take over control of the landing.

NASA's Mission Control then announced that he would overshoot his landing zone by more than 200 miles and, worse, they had lost contact with him.

Talking to a suddenly solemn nation, CBS newsman Walter Cronkite told the audience: "We may have … lost an astronaut."

But Carpenter survived the landing that day.

Always cool under pressure — his heart rate never went above 105 during the flight — he oriented himself by simply peering out the space capsule's window. The Navy found him in the Caribbean, floating in his life raft with his feet propped up. He offered up some of his space rations.

In the 1962 book "We Seven," written by the first seven astronauts, Carpenter wrote about his thoughts while waiting to be picked up after splashing down.

"I sat for a long time just thinking about what I'd been through. I couldn't believe it had all happened. It had been a tremendous experience, and though I could not ever really share it with anyone, I looked forward to telling others as much about it as I could. I had made mistakes and some things had gone wrong. But I hoped that other men could learn from my experiences. I felt that the flight was a success, and I was proud of that."

Carpenter never did go back in space, but his explorations continued. In 1965, he spent 30 days under the ocean off the coast of California as part of the Navy's SeaLab II program.

Once again the motivation was both fear and curiosity.

"I wanted, No. 1, to learn about it (the ocean), but No. 2, I wanted to get rid of what was an unreasoned fear of the deep water," Carpenter told the NASA historian. "

Inspired by Jacques Cousteau, Carpenter worked with the Navy to bring some of NASA's training and technology to the sea floor. The 57-by-12-foot habitat was lowered to a depth of 205 feet off San Diego. A bottlenose dolphin named Tuffy ferried supplies from the surface to the aquanauts below.

After another stint at NASA in the mid-1960s, helping develop the Apollo lunar lander, Carpenter returned to the SeaLab program as director of aquanaut operations for SeaLab III.

He retired from the Navy in 1969, founded his company Sea Sciences Inc., worked closely with Cousteau and dove in most of the world's oceans, including under the ice in the Arctic.

When the 77-year-old Glenn returned to orbit in 1998 aboard space shuttle Discovery, Carpenter radioed: "Good luck, have a safe flight and … once again, Godspeed, John Glenn."

Malcolm Scott Carpenter was born May 1, 1925, in Boulder, Colo. (He hated his first name and didn't use it). He was raised by his maternal grandparents after his mother became ill with tuberculosis.

He attended the University of Colorado for one semester, joined the Navy during World War II, and returned to school but didn't graduate because he flunked out of a class on heat transfer his senior year. The school eventually awarded him a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering in 1962 after he orbited the Earth.

He rejoined the Navy in 1949 and was a fighter and test pilot in the Pacific and served as intelligence officer.

He married four times and had seven children.

Carpenter said that he joined the Mercury program for many reasons: "One of them, quite frankly, is that it is a chance for immortality. Most men never have a chance for immortality."

Contributing: James Dean of Florida Today