Scott Carpenter Dies – Mercury 7 Astronaut & Colorado Resident Dead at 88

One of the last surviving original Mercury 7 astronauts has died.

Astronaut Scott Carpenter, who made his home in Vail, CO was the second American to orbit the Earth after John Glenn. Glenn is now the only one of the original 7 astronauts involved in Project Mercury.

According to Wikipedia

Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States led by its newly created space agency NASA. It ran from 1959 through 1963 with the goal of putting a human in orbit around the Earth, and doing it before the Soviet Union, as part of the early space race. It involved 7 astronauts flying a total of 6 solo trips.

Carpenter died of complications from a stroke in a Denver hospice. He was 88.

[9News]

The Flight of Aurora 7 as told in 1994 by the Astronauts themselves.