Re: OM corrects a major personal oversight...

From: Ami Silberman (silber_at_mitre.org)
Date: 11/15/04 

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 13:12:30 -0500

"Robert Casey" <wa2ise@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:1zCld.15845$Gm6.4225@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...
> In a book about the space program to land on the Moon,
> (I think it was) Chris Kraft wrote, it seems that 6 of the
> 7 astronauts did their work pretty well. But he essentially
> rips Carpenter a new a-hole. Did Carpenter really do that
> bad a job as astronaut? Or maybe Chris and Carpenter didn't
> get along?...

Kraft and Carpenter didn't seem to get along. Part of the problem seems to
be that Kraft was pissed at Carpenter about an earlier incident that not
only Carpenter wasn't at fault for, but he wasn't even involved in. (IIRC,
whoever was backing someone up on something didn't do a good job, and Kraft
thought it was Carpenter, even though it was another astro. Don't remember
the details to well.) I've done the same myself.

Kraft, and ground control in general, didn't realize how packed the the
mission was with things to do. They overlooked Carpenter's comments about
difficulties in maintaining attitude, and only became aware of the fuel
shortage on the third orbit. In addition, the human factors engineering of
the Mercury control system made it quite easy to accidentally set up the
controls with dual authority, which is what led to the fuel problems.

My personal reading (having read both their books) is that Kraft didn't
understand what was going on as well as he thought he did, and no one, at
the time, realized how difficult working in space was, even within a
capsule. Carpenter's flight was by no means a carbon copy of Glenn's, even
though it was the same duration.

You should try Carpenter's book -- For Spacious Skys, it is quite good.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: NASA Honors Apollo Astronaut Scott Carpenter
    ... Mercury mission. ... The real story is that Kraft thought that Carpenter's flight was the ... impression that Carpenter was ignoring orders from the ground. ...
    (sci.space.history)
  • Re: PING! Rusty - looking for a specific PDF for Aurora 7
    ... Carpenter went all gung-ho for the experiments and the simulators, I sort of found it rather hard to believe that he didn't display the same exuberance with the flight control sims. ... This has me wondering if Kraft might not have embellished the story a bit to bolster his negative assessment of Carpenter's flight by offering "proof" that it was apparent he wasn't fit to fly to begin with. ...
    (sci.space.history)
  • Re: PING! Rusty - looking for a specific PDF for Aurora 7
    ... >mentions of Carpenter screwing things up in the control room on ... >previous flights ... ....The only one I've read so far were comments by Kraft in his bio. ... against Carpenter since the Aurora 7 mission, which is why I'd like to ...
    (sci.space.history)