Scott Carpenter has certainly soared the highest! As one of seven Project Mercury astronauts, Carpenter was the second American to orbit the earth, on May 24, 1962. During his three circumnavigations of the planet, Carpenter was obliged to pilot his craft to safety on manual override after his autopilot failed at retrofire. NASA called it a manned space program for a reason! He and his spacecraft, Aurora 7, landed safely in the Atlantic after four hours and 54 minutes in space. Carpenter's love of the outdoors and high adventure were nurtured here in Boulder, where he was born, spent his childhood, and attended university. Most people don't know that Scott Carpenter is a fifth-generation Coloradan. His forebears, the Kelsos and Noxons, arrived in 1860 (the Carpenters were latecomers, in 1876).

Scott Carpenter was born on May 1, 1925. His father, also M. Scott Carpenter, was CU class of '22 (B.S), '24 (M.S.), and '25(Ph.D.), and married Florence Kelso noxon (class of '22). With his father in New York and his mother debilitated by T.B., Carpenter made his childhood home at the corner of Aurora and Seventh. Carpenter attended University Hill School and graduated from Boulder High School in 1943. As an aviation cadet, Carpenter was sent to Colorado College for Basic and Ottumwa, Iowa, for Flight training. With the end of WWII, and demobilization, Carpenter returned to Boulder to complete his undergraduate education. In 1949, Carpenter was heading to his final in thermodynamics only to find the one bridge out of Left Hand Canyon washed out by snowmelt- he missed the final, missed getting his degree, and was snapped up by the U.S. Navy that summer, on the eve of the Korean war. Scott Carpenter in 1959 was asked to join an elite group of fliers - pioneers on a new a new frontier: space. In 1962, Boulder greeted her native son with a parade down Broadway. At the reception in Folsom field, Carpenter was finally awarded his aeronautical engineering degree. In remarks on the historic occasion, Carpenter jested that he had expected a master's, noting his real-life experience with a fiery reentry.

Carpenter's love of adventure found expression, after NASA, in the U.S. Navy's Man-In-The-Sea project, commanding SEALAB II off the coast of California. During the 45-day experiment, Carpenter spent 30 days living and working more than 200 feet below the surface of the ocean. He later became director of Aquanaut Operations during the SEALAB III experiment for the Navy's Deep Submergence Systems Project. After pioneering work in the ocean, Carpenter returned to NASA, helping to design the Apollo Lunar Landing Module and supervising the first astronaut training facilities and techniques for EVA (extra-vehicular activities). Currently he applies his experience both to the space and sea exploration, as a consultant, as a proponent of space and sea ventures, and as an articulate advocate for exploration on all frontiers.