CU-Boulder alum, NASA Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter dies at 88

Scott Carpenter, a University of Colorado Boulder alumnus and a famed NASA Mercury astronaut who became only the second American to orbit Earth, died Thursday.听 He was 88.
Carpenter, a Boulder native, entered CU-Boulder鈥檚 astronautical engineering program in 1945, eventually earning a bachelor of science degree. He orbited Earth three times on May 24, 1962, in NASA鈥檚 Aurora 7 capsule before splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean.
Carpenter was the first of 18 CU-Boulder astronaut affiliates to have flown in space. As one of the first NASA astronauts, Carpenter and his colleagues were celebrated in the Tom Wolfe book, 鈥淭he Right Stuff,鈥� which told the story of early military test pilots and the original Mercury 7 astronauts.
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