Aurora 7 - Burgess, Colin

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Résumé :
TO A NATION enthralled by the heroic exploits of the Mercury astronauts, the launch of Lt. Cmdr. Scott Carpenter on NASA?s second orbital space flight was a renewed cause for pride, jubilation and celebration. Within hours, that excitement had given way to stunned disbelief and anxiety as shaken broadcasters began preparing the American public for the very real possibility that an American astronaut and his spacecraft may have been lost at sea. In fact, it had been a very close call. Completely out of fuel and forced to manually guide Aurora 7 through the frightening inferno of re-entry, Carpenter brought the Mercury spacecraft down to a safe splashdown in the ocean. In doing so, he controversially overshot the intended landing zone. Despite his efforts, Carpenter?s performance on the MA-7 mission was later derided by powerful figures within NASA. He would never fly into space again. Taking temporary leave of NASA, Carpenter participated in the U.S. Navy?s pioneering Sealab program. For a record 30 days he lived and worked aboard a pressurized habitat resting on the floor of the ocean, becoming the nation?s first astronaut/aquanaut explorer. Following extensive research conducted by noted spaceflight historian Colin Burgess, the drama-filled flight of Aurora 7 is faithfully recounted in this engrossing book, along with the personal recollections of Scott Carpenter and those closest to the actual events.

Biographie:
David Shayler has been writing books for Springer-Praxis for over 18 years, with a total of 25 authored or coauthored titles for the series. These have ranged from various aspects of American and Russian manned spaceflight history and operations to topics on women in space, the human exploration of Mars and the development of EVA techniques and operations. He has a passion for recording the lives and careers of the world's space explorers. He has been a member of the British Interplanetary Society for over 40 years and currently is a serving Council Member. He also organized and hosted the annual Sino-Chinese Technical Forum and is currently organizing two extra Forums for next year on the topic of Space Rescue and Safety and 20 years of ISS Operations. Dave is a guest editor of the annual BIS JBIS Space Chronicle issue on Sino and Chinese Technical Forums and has contributed to a number of BIS Publications. His work has been published in the UK in Spaceflight, and Spaceflight News, and in the United States under Macmillan's Who's Who in Space trilogy as well as the Magill Science Survey and the MPress Secrets of the Universe Card Collection. A number of his titles and published articles have been referenced in other books, journals and official NASA publications.Colin Burgess's early books were on the Australian prisoner-of-war experience, before he turned his efforts to writing about his principal interest: human space exploration. Colin has written a number of books on the subject for the University of Nebraska Press and Springer-Praxis. The books he has written or coauthored for Springer-Praxis are NASA's Scientist-Astronauts, Animals in Space, The First Soviet Cosmonaut Team, Selecting the Mercury Seven, Moon Bound, Freedom 7, Liberty Bell 7 Friendship 7 and Aurora 7. More recently, he has written about the Interkosmos program and a history of NASA's Group 5 and 7 astronauts with coauthor David Shayler....

Sommaire:
A replacement astronaut.- From Colorado to the Cape.- Training for MA-7.- Aurora 7 in orbit.- A highly troubled mission.- Walter Cronkite: We may have lost an astronaut.- Post-flight repercussions.- Epilogue: From astronaut to aquanaut.