Writing with his daughter, astronaut Scott Carpenter breaks his 40 year silence to set the record straight about the 1962 "Aurora 7" mission that captivated a nation. Now in paperback, the "New York Times" bestseller features new materials and photos.
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Writing with his daughter, astronaut Scott Carpenter breaks his 40 year silence to set the record straight about the 1962 "Aurora 7" mission that captivated a nation. Now in paperback, the "New York Times" bestseller features new materials and photos.
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Add this copy of For Spacious Skies: the Uncommon Journey of a Mercury to cart. $3.81, very good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Dallas rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by New American Library.
Add this copy of For Spacious Skies: the Uncommon Journey of a Mercury to cart. $3.81, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Dallas rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by New American Library.
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This is a great book in the genre of American astronaut biographies/autobiographies. The book details Carpenters youth at length, the first third of the book covering this life up to age 20. His childhood, parents, and grandparents feature prominently in the first half of his story. His mother clings seemingly endlessly to a marriage that was never meant to be (it effectively broke up after about three years), and he pursues his absentee father's presence and acceptance in a way to me seems old-fashioned. We learn the interesting story of how NASA formed, the Original 7 Astronauts were chosen, and a little of the first three U.S. spaceflights that preceded Carpenter's. Not trained as a pilot or engineer, I an unable to grasp properly the technical matters of his Aurora 7 flight, which is what I am most interested in. The "malfunction and the errors by the ground team that are alluded to are not interpreted for the lay reader. Considering how controversial his flight became, I am surprised that he did not spend more pages defending his performance during his flight and in explaining in detail how the mechanical malfunctions and ground control errors led to the landing mishap. Chris Kraft, Jr. and other big heads obviously scapegoated Carpenter. (There were lots of spaceship malfunctions in the early days of NASA, and his career up to that point was spotless, so why would he have purposely tried to sabotage his future?) He presents the issues, but he does not fire back harshly, as some offended persons might. Nevertheless, I wonder, even in spite of his 1964 motorbike accident (which changed his NASA flight status to grounded), whether he would have had another chance at spaceflight were it not for Chris Kraft's spite.
At the end of the book, the story wraps up rather quickly after Carpenter's 1962 space flight and fades a little into the navy research and family life that followed. But it ends too quickly for me. The information in this part of the book is scant, and it barely mentions the 1974 divorce, and does not delve into any of the later life, which resulted in later marriages and children. His parents, who are prominently described in the first half of the book, become absent in the last half; later they are mentioned a couple times in regards to their reactions to Scott's spaceflight. Only tiny hints are given of his post-NASA life, but as the reader I would like to know more as I had devoted part of my life to learn of this family. Furthermore, I am puzzled by the seventh paragraph in the acknowledgments. It mentions twice that due to a lack of kindness, Rene Carpenter (Scott's wife during the period written) was not available to help write an astronaut/ex-wife collaboration. She was still living at the time of writing. There is a bibliographical reference to Rene's 2001 manuscript. The story describes her only in kind words. So what does that mean?
Authorship and language (in case you are interested, as I always comment on language usage): Astronaut Scott Carpenter is given first billing in the credits, but his daughter is named second. Like most "autobiographical" astronaut books, the writing is credited to the astronaut and a professional writer. (I believe some astronauts, like Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins, truly author their own books.) Scott Carpenter might have written drafts or gave other supporting information, but I honestly believe the book was obviously written by Stoever, who has a degree in history and works an editor and writer. First, on nearly every page I had to use a dictionary to look up unusual words (many of which I learned in my intense high school and college coursework, but that I forgot due to rare occurrence) or that were new to me. Highbrow references are sprinkled in text as if the reader is supposed to know obscure factoids. (For example, the name "Holden Caulfield" appears a couple times with no explanation, and in 12 years of college education and intensive self-education, I have not come across it before. I learned it is a fictional character. I haven't read EVERY book.) In comparison to other astronaut books, this book lacks the full complement of dirty swear words and sailor vocabulary to have been written by a navy veteran/test pilot/astronaut. My summation: the writer of the final text was the editor-daughter.
The book includes bibliographical references and an index. The 2004 updated edition includes a two-page addition about 2003 that follows the epilogue, but I do not have a first edition to make any other comparisons between the editions.
Coincidentally, I happen to start reading this book in mid-2020 about the time Annie Glenn died (astronaut John Glenn's wife and next door neighbor of the Carpenters while in Houston). Upon finishing the book, I searched Rene Carpenter on the Internet and discovered that she had died days before. The two couples became good friends, and both women are part of Scott's story. They two were the last survivors as the Original 14 (the Original Seven Astronauts and the first Seven Astronaut Wives). This made my reading more meaningful to me.
