Scrapbook 2: May 1962 — Scott Carpenter, Deke Slayton

ELEVEN airmen who were to take part in America’s attempt to put another man into Space at the week-end were killed in an air crash yesterday.

The eleven men were members of a rescue team which was to stand by in Nairobi, Kenya, in case the Space capsule has to make an emergency landing in East Africa.

The giant transport plane carrying the team and their equipment crashed into mountains thirty miles out of Nairobi.

‘50-50’

The eleven Space specialists and the plane’s crew of three were killed.

Will this hold up the Space flight of astronaut Scott Carpenter?

An official at the US Space base at Cape Canaveral, Florida, said last night: “We don’t know yet. But we only have a fifty-fifty chance of getting him off on Saturday, anyway, because of bad weather.”

Shepard Tells Aims of Next U.S. Space Flight

Carpenter to Have Big Role in Orbit

POINT ARGUELLO, Calif. (UPI) Scott Carpenter will have more to do with the success or failure of his earth-orbit flight than any other astronaut on previous Russian and American space flights, according to Alan B. Shepard.

Shepard said the projected Carpenter flight, set for Thursday, would be “the most man-controlled orbital space flight” on record.

“Carpenter will have more leeway and flexibility in controlling attitudes and angles of his spacecraft,” Shepard America’s first astronaut to make a space flight, told a news conference. Shepard will be Carpenter’s capsule communicator here at Mercury Station No. 1.

Shepard said he expected to have little to do on Carpenter’s flight and predicted full success.

Asked about his own ambitions, Shepard stated he hoped to be the first man on the moon. He was asked if he thought he was too old in view of the years it will take to develop the U.S. moon program.

“Not at all,” responded Shepard, now 38 years old.

Referring to the immediate future and the Carpenter flight, Shepard said:

“He will test several visual devices that were low priority on John Glenn’s flight and which Glenn didn’t use,” Shepard said.

Carpenter’s flight will have the same trajectory as the flight made by Glenn, first U.S. astronaut to orbit the earth. He also will try to sight flares shot up from Woomera, Australia, which Glenn could not see because of cloud cover.

“And there are several new things we will try,” Shepard said.

“For one thing, we will try to get better pictures of the luminous particles that Glenn spotted on his flight.”

Shepard said the Carpenter capsule also will use a balloon which will be released from the tail of the capsule, a device to tell how much tension or drag exists as well as molecular density.

On May 5, 1961 Shepard was boosted by a Redstone rocket to an altitude of 117 miles in the first manned sub-orbital flight attempted by the U.S. He arrived here earlier this week to work on the Carpenter flight.

Shepard also stated:

—“I think we will eventually find life outside solar system. I think it is not only possible it will be intelligent life, but more intelligent than on earth.”

Spaceman will take a ‘beach ball’

AMERICA’S next Spaceman, Lieutenant Commander Scott Carpenter, will trail a striped balloon like a beach ball behind his Spaceship when he goes into orbit round the Earth later this month.

It will be used to find out whether there really is a complete vacuum in Space.

Scientists who thought this was so now believe there may be tiny particles which cause friction.

The balloon will be able to measure this friction “resistance” to a travelling object.

Space officials at Cape Canaveral, Florida, said last night that the earliest date for 37-year-old Carpenter’s trip will be next Thursday.

STRAIGHT AND NARROW—Astronaut Scott Carpenter picks his way along the balance rail at Cape Canaveral to keep in shape for his orbital flight Thursday. —Associated Press Photo

Slayton May Be Choice For Next Orbit Attempt

NEW YORK (AP) — With Astronaut M. Scott Carpenter still waiting for a chance to blast into orbit, space officials may have already settled on their next candidate for space: Donald K. Slayton.

Carpenter, a Navy lieutenant commander, is now scheduled to orbit the earth three times no earlier than Thursday.

Unofficially it was learned that technicians were readying another Mercury space capsule and that it may contain Slayton’s space couch.

Slayton, a 38-year-old Air Force major, was originally named to be the astronaut for the present space shot.

But doctors discovered a small irregularity in his heartbeat and ruled him out of the attempt. Carpenter, 37, backup pilot for both Slayton and John H. Glenn Jr., was named to take Slayton’s place.

If present information is correct, it means that Slayton has been reinstated and will make the third U.S. space shot around the world.

Sources also indicated that the number of orbits for the third U.S. orbital shot has not yet been decided. Presumably, if the Carpenter shot is a success, there will be no reason to repeat the three-orbit mission. The number of orbits may be boosted to either seven or 18.

The number selected will depend on the success of Carpenter’s flight, and the confidence which Project Mercury officials have in the present rocket and capsule configration.

USAFE Teams Link Chain Of Aurora 7 Monitor Sites

WIESBADEN, Germany (Special) — USAFE elements at four scattered points on the African continent stood ready in the event that astronaut Scott Carpenter’s space capsule went awry.

Altogether, 20 ships, 110 aircraft and 13,000 servicemen of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps were involved in support of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Aurora 7 manned flight in the four general areas of launch, network (range), recovery and bioastronautics.

Support provided by the Department of Defense elements for the space shots is limited only by their primary responsibilities for national defense.

Here in Europe, EUCOM Hq has assigned responsibility for contingency recovery to Gen Truman H. Landon, USAFE commander-in-chief. Aircraft, helicopters, communications and medical support are provided by both USAFE and USAREUR units.

These forces deploy to four African bases including Ben Guerir AB, Morocco; Kano, Nigeria; Nairobi, Kenya; and Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia.

Col H. C. Wilder, commander of the Atlantic Air Rescue Center at Ramstein AB, Germany, heads these deployed teams. He also acts as the mission coordinator for Project Mercury contingency recovery operations in the Mauritis area.

Air Force Communications Service provides operators for much of the point-to-point equipment linking the 16 deployed or alerted Air Unit teams and control centers with the Mercury control center at Cape Canaveral, Fla.