An American Hero (and me)

This is Scott Carpenter and me..

I was so excited to meet this gentleman because he is the second American to orbit the earth!

Mr. Carpenter is one of the original seven astronauts selected in 1959 for Project Mercury. I was lucky enough to get to met him at a 50th Anniversary of NASA spaceflight celebration on January 31st, 2008. He flew into space on May 24th, 1962, atop the Mercury-Atlas7 rocket for a three-orbit science mission that lasted nearly five hours. His Aurora 7 spacecraft attained a maximum altitude of 164 miles and an orbital velocity of 17,532 miles per hour.