For Spacious Skies: The Uncommon Journey of a Mercury Astronaut

Rating:
Summary: A Good Deal Of Space!
Review: Want to know what it would have been like to be in on the ground floor of the space program? Well here's your chance. Take a look into one astronaut's life from birth to orbital grace.
You really have to give this book a chance as it does cover quite a bit of Carpenter's life, but it has to for you to understand the man.
This read will also give you a great backdoor view of the incredible ego of one Mr. Kraft and how one mans prejudice and childish whim could possibly change the course of a great test pilot. God Speed Scott Carpenter, wherever you are!

Rating:
Summary: A revealing look at the Flight versus Pilot battles
Review: While I skimmed through the personal family history, I immensely enjoyed the chapters picking up with Scott Carpenter's nomination for the Mercury 7. The later years in the space program tell of heroic teaming of the Apollo flight directors (Kranz in particular) and the pilot-astronauts to solve potentially fatal mission problems. But in the early years the two groups were not in accord. Carpenter reminds of the decision by Kraft not to include Glenn in the communication loop on his heat shield problem. After proving that the American space program could successfully put a man into orbit and bring him back safely, the NASA science staff made the decision to cram the next mission with studies, observations and experiments. You must read how Carpenter handled these demands in an environment of over 100 degrees for 4 and a half hours. Keep in mind that Wally Schirra demanded not only on the next flight to get back to basics, but he and Flight went round and round on the first Apollo mission (a true test flight) when Flight wanted to begin adding to his workload AFTER the mission was underway. Schirra demurred to the wrath of Flight and Kraft swore that Schirra would never fly in space again. Where have we heard that before? This is excellent reading and a revealing counter perspective to Kraft's ("flight is god") point of view.