R.I.P. Scott Carpenter

[absolom7691]

One of the original 7.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/11/us...t-88.html?_r=0

[The_Doctor]

"Tom Wolfe wrote that Mr. Kraft’s criticism fueled NASA engineers’ simmering resentment of the astronauts’ status as pop-culture heroes."
I wasn't there, not even close, but I read that book, and others, and as far as I know that wasn't the issue. Many of the engineers were happy when astronauts visited them, and didn't resent at all, they just wanted things to go right so everyone looked good. Given how much could go wrong, it's amazing how little did, especially after 'kaputnik' appeared to set the initial pace. There was one astronaut who really could arguably have panicked, and I don;t think anyone felt worse about it than he did. If he (Grissom) hadn't been killed in the fire before launch of a later mission, there might have been a different history written, but I doubt it. Being the 'right stuff' didn't mean beign superhuman. That is the point. As far as I'm aware there was no resentment between astronauts and engineers, the dispute was with mission controllers who wanted to rule out human actions to favour mechanical rigour, and test pilots knew that there are times when that just won't do, especially when they were up there, and the people making that decision weren't. It was never their call. Fortunately the pilots won. If they hadn't, the history would mainly have been about satellites and space probes, and Shuttle would never have existed.