Pigs, Photographers, and Extinctospectrophotopolariscopeoculogyrogravokinetometers (Armchair Astronaut, May 2011)

Believe it or not, extinctospectrophotopolariscopeoculogyrogravokinetometer really is a word! It's the name of a photometer that that astronaut Scott Carpenter used on his Mercury flight almost forty-nine years ago...but I'm getting ahead of myself. Welcome, everybody, to this seventh edition of Armchair Astronaut!

This month I'm featuring Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter's autobiography, For Spacious Skies. This was a very interesting and well-done book, and Carpenter did many more exciting things than following John Glenn into space. (Even though he did that too.)

Malcolm Scott Carpenter grew up in Boulder, Colorado. I'm sad to say, but Carpenter didn't have the ideal home. His father was constantly in New York, and almost never came for visits. His mother loved him, but was frail from tuberculosis. He was lucky that he lived with his grandparents, and they served as good role models.

When Carpenter came of age, he joined the Navy to fly airplanes. He was training for WWII, however, the conflict ended before Carpenter shipped out. He was ready in time for the Korean War, and in the early 1950s he shipped out to the Pacific with his new wife Rene and their kids. The Carpenter family made a stop in Hawaii before Scott flew up to the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, to help patrol Russian and Chinese coasts. Meanwhile, Rene and the Carpenter children set up house in Hawaii.

Carpenter's favorite jet:
"Foxtrot One One Foxtrot One"

Scott Carpenter patrolled enemy coasts and other duties very well. When his war duty was done, a superior nominated him for a spot at Patuxent River Test Pilot School. That was an honor, an almost holy spot for fliers. Pax River was the Navy's version of Edwards, and at Pax River test pilots took their machines to the limit and beyond to see how the planes functioned (or didn't function) and to fix any mistakes before the planes were pressed into service.

One of Carpenter's favorite jets to fly was the F11F Tiger Cat. After a revision had been made to the plane, pilots couldn't just call it "F11F" anymore; now it was referred to as "F11F1". Carpenter loved to say the jets' call sign in airplane lingo: "Foxtrot One One Foxtrot One".



But in 1957 new eager naval aviators were coming to Pax River, and it was time for Carpenter to move on. He was devastated. All he wanted to do was fly airplanes, but now he was assigned to a cruise at sea aboard the USS Hornet as a lowly air intelligence officer. (Which, if my memory serves me right,the USS Hornet picked up the Apollo 11 astronauts in 1969.) Carpenter was to be on the USS Hornet for at least six months, five of which were spent in dry dock. First the ship was in Seattle, then it sailed south to San Diego. Carpenter's family lived in Long Beach, between Los Angeles and San Diego.

While in San Diego, the Hornet's skipper got mad. Really mad. The Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Air was asking for his air intelligence officer to report to the Pentagon. Why out of all the Navy did the Pentagon need Carpenter? Carpenter took his leave and he and Rene drove out to Washington. They knew Carpenter must be involved in some top-secret project; perhaps a new plane or mission? Or spaceflight? When Rene read a short snippet about "Space" in Time magazine, the Carpenter's suspicions were confirmed. Malcolm Scott Carpenter was being considered for spaceflight.

Scott Carpenter during a centrifuge run--
one of the many tests during astronaut selection

The Carpenters were right. Scott Carpenter kept advancing through the cuts, always going through more tests and briefings about this new project called "Project Mercury". One of the testing phases was near Albuquerque, New Mexico where doctors made the candidates suffer inhumane, painful tests. While I could get really angry at these doctors, I always remember that no one had ever gone into space before. These doctors had to test these military test pilots for anything and everything.  Through it all, Carpenter was a champ. He was that rare mix of an accomplished, talented test pilot combined with an outstanding body. As he progressed through the tests, he constantly shattered records. He could hold his breath longer, run on the treadmill longer, or anything other thing better or longer than anyone else. And on April 2, 1959, he was revealed to the world as a Mercury astronaut.

If I told you everything I liked about this book, this article would turn into a book itself! Suffice it to say that For Spacious Skies is one of the most interesting books I've ever read, especially when Carpenter tells about how NASA was formed, and its early days. That's fascinating! To give you just a little taste of the stories in this book, here goes....

This first story is about pigs. During NASA's early days, there were many unmanned tests, and often animals would be used in place of man as their organs and body makeup were similar to our's. For example, some people at NASA were working on the reentry and recovery procedures needed during a manned flight. How much stress and strain could a man take? Since pigs' bodies are similar to humans' bodies in some respects, these animals were used in the reentry and recovery testing. The pigs were fitted with their own little contoured couches, and placed in their own capsules. An airplane would hoist the capsule up high, and then drop it, the end result of which is the capsule splashing down on the water and NASA getting some more data.

One time, some NASA engineers made a mistake. They inserted a pig into a capsule, but then braked for lunch. When they came back, they found the pig dead in the capsule and couch! What was the problem? Hurriedly, they called the farmer from whom they had obtained their test subjects. The farmer explained that pigs cannot stay in a certain position for too long, or their organs squish them to death. This certain position was how the pigs were in the capsules. When the engineers had left the pig in the capsule over lunch break, time had run up and the pig had died. After this experience, no more pigs were left in their capsules over lunch!

OK. Onto a happy, funny story! Life magazine assigned photographer Ralph Morse to cover in photos the astronauts' training and flights. Wherever they would train, he would be there to take pictures. Well, at one point the Mercury 7 astronauts needed desert survival training, to equip them for if they accidentally landed on a hot part of the globe. However, for this desert survival training, NASA made it very clear that they did not want Ralph Morse to follow.

Or so said NASA. Ralph Morse was determined to find the astronauts. First, he asked Carpenter's son Scotty where his daddy was going. Scotty replied that his daddy was headed to Reno, Nevada. As soon as Morse got that news, he jumped on a plane and headed out west.

Once in Reno, Morse found the astronauts at the motel where they were staying. Everyone had a good laugh, but Morse was reminded once again that he was not to follow the astronauts. Like Ralph Morse was going to do that! The one other piece of information Morse had was that the home base for the astronauts in the desert was a big red-and-white tent.

The Mercury 7 astronauts in desert survival training.

Morse bought a supply of flour bombs, and then hired a local private pilot to search for the big tent. After searching for a while, the pilot and Morse spotted what they were looking for. Morse dropped a flour bomb nearby. In fact, Morse dropped flour bombs at strategic spots all the way back to Reno, thus insuring that he would be able to find his way back to the astronauts' home base. Sure enough, once on the ground Morse found a Jeep and drove straight to the big tent, surprising the astronauts! While some at NASA didn't like it, the astronauts loved Morse all the more for it. Morse got his pictures, and this story became firmly planted in NASA legend, being told again and again and again.

Now to explain the extinctospectrophotopolariscopeoculogyrogravokinetometers! Yes, it's over twenty syllables and the short version of the word is that it was a photometer, able to see how clear star constellations are in space. Scott Carpenter used this instrument on his Mercury-Atlas 7 flight on May 24, 1962--almost forty-nine years ago! The scientific community was elated when Carpenter was chosen to pilot America's second manned orbital flight, because Carpenter was in the truest sense of the word an astronaut and a scientist. John Glenn's duty was to see if an orbital flight could be done. Carpenter's job was to both see if John Glenn's feat could be duplicated, and to perform various scientific experiments that Glenn couldn't do. 

Earth, as seen by Scott Carpenter.

Carpenter's flight was exciting from the time the launch occurred. Some of the instruments failed, and with an already ambitious flight plan full of experiments, Carpenter wasn't able to complete all the experiments and steer the capsule correctly. After three orbits he initiated reentry and came home, landing 250 miles off target. Some people at NASA were really upset by this, but considering that Carpenter had too full of a flight plan and that he was in a malfunctioning capsule, I do not hold any hard feelings against him. If Aurora 7 hadn't been in the hands of an expert astronaut and test pilot, the flight wouldn't have come off so well.

A couple years later, Carpenter retired from being an astronaut and became an aquanaut for the Navy's Sealab program. He and some fellow divers spent several weeks under the sea, discovering how man works under water for long periods of time. While in the water, Carpenter was even able to talk with his astronaut friend Gordo Cooper while Cooper was in space!

If you want to read an excellent book about how NASA began and the exciting life of a military test pilot and astronaut, read For Spacious Skies: The Uncommon Journey of a Mercury Astronaut!