Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter dies

Staff/wire report

DENVER

Scott Carpenter, the second American to orbit the Earth, was guided by two instincts: overcoming fear and quenching his insatiable curiosity. He pioneered his way into the heights of space and the depths of the ocean floor.

“Conquering of fear is one of life’s greatest pleasures, and it can be done a lot of different places,” he said.

His wife, Patty Barrett, said Carpenter died Thursday in a Denver hospice of complications from a September stroke. He lived in Vail. Carpenter was 88.

Carpenter followed John Glenn into orbit, and it was Carpenter who gave him the historic sendoff: “Godspeed John Glenn.” The two were the last survivors of the famed original Mercury 7 astronauts from the “Right Stuff” days of the early 1960s. Glenn is the only one left alive.

In his one flight, Carpenter missed his landing by 288 miles, leaving a nation on edge for an hour as it watched live and putting Carpenter on the outs with his NASA bosses. So Carpenter found a new place to explore: the ocean floor.

He was the only person who was both an astronaut and an aquanaut.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said Thursday that Carpenter “was in the vanguard of our space program — the pioneers who set the tone for our nation’s pioneering efforts beyond Earth and accomplished so much for our nation. ... We will miss his passion, his talent and his lifelong commitment to exploration.”

Astronomer Ted Pedas, who has been associated with the planetariums at Youngstown State University and the Farrell Area School District, met Carpenter in 1972, when he agreed to be a lecturer on one of Pedas’ astronomy-themed cruises.

Between 1972 and 2002, Carpenter joined Pedas for more than 30 cruises, during which he would relate his experiences as both an astronaut and an aquanaut to passengers — sometimes even one-on-one.

“I remember very, very fondly when people would want to give him money for an autograph, and he would say, ‘You taxpayers have already paid my way to go into space, and I owe it to you,’” Pedas recalled. “He was very, very humble and down to earth.”

Pedas said he will miss Carpenter, with whom he developed a “close and wonderful” friendship over the years.

“He was just a great, wonderful human being, and I don’t think we will see the likes of this type of person in the future,” Pedas said. “Everything that he did, he always brought such innovation and curiosity beyond belief. ... But he was like the person next door. [His accomplishments] never went to his head.”