Malcolm Scott Carpenter was an American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, aeronautical engineer, astronaut and aquanaut. He was one of the Mercury Seven astronauts selected for NASA's Project Mercury in April 1959. Carpenter was the second American to orbit the Earth and the fourth American in space, after Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom and Glenn.
The Mercury Seven astronauts. Front row, left to right, Wally Schirra, Deke Slayton, John Glenn, and Carpenter; back row, Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom and Gordon Cooper.
Carpenter and his family visit the White House. Left to right: Rene, President John F. Kennedy, Kristen, Carpenter, Scott, Candace and Jay.
Carpenter is assisted into his pressure suit in the crew quarters of Hangar S at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on the morning of the flight of Mercury Atlas 7.
Rene Carpenter was an American newspaper columnist and host of two Washington, D.C., television shows.
As the wife of Scott Carpenter, one of the Mercury Seven astronauts, she was a pioneering member of NASA's early spaceflight families.