space suit in 1962, scott carpenter, died today at the age of 88. in 1962, he became the second american to orbit the earth. carpenter s wife patty con confirms his death was at 5:30 this morning at a hospice in denver. with his death, john glenn is the last mercury 7 astronaut still with us on earth today. and on this day in 1845, the united states naval academy first opened its disaster as the naval school in annapolis, maryland, and as the navy grew, intoso did the came, agreed graduating more astronauts than any other school. the list includes jimmy carter. the college started accepting women in 1976.
are easy, but because they are hard. the mercury program would ultimately have six manned flights. each mission a step closer to the ultimate goal. then as mercury was winding down on november 22nd, 1963 president kennedy was assassinated. to honor his memory and the future of the works that he started, the nasa launch operation center shall here to be known as the john f. kennedy space center. in april 1964 nasa launched project gemini. the gemini was started and it was a two-man spacecraft. the gemini program was specifically to show that we could do a rendezvous and dock. in order to get to the moon you had to have capability of two weeks in space. you had to beke able to rendezvous. you had to be able to do eva, get outside the spacecraft in a spacesuit, and you had to have a guided re-entry.
3 and a half years after the sputnik shock on april 12th, 1961, the soviets out paced the u.s. once again when confidante became the first human being in space. they beat us into orbit. so we were behind. we were lagging. america scrambled to catch up. less than one month later mercury 7 became the first american in space. just over 3 nonts into his presidency john f. kennedy like millions of other americans across the country was glued to his television. he became an instant hero that they needed. jfk his sights set on beating the soviets had advice from the top engineers one was beamed rocket scientist.
space station and deep spacecraft like orion and the rocket that will carry it out on from the space station. they can t get going on these project unless they deliver cost savings that is important element of nasa s strategy. jon: i m old enough to remember the mercury, and gemini and apollo programs. it was a sense of national pride when the big rockets on the saturn v would launch. it seems strange to hand it over to private enterprise. i guess i m kind of stuck in the past, huh? i don t think you re stuck in the past. the launch this morning looks a lot like old saturn launches than the shuttle because of care seen fuel burned this morning. we need this to take place. nasa very intently wants to get out into deep space with the orion. that will not happen for five years and crews will not fly on that until latter part of this decade. nasa needs support and research until they get the deep spaceships going.
moon, but that was 40 years ago. the u.s. is essentially sitting on the bench in the current space race. will that hurt it back here on earth? and is america coming apart? that s what the author of a controversial new book says. i ll ask him about it. but first, here s my take. something caught my eye the other day. pat robertson, the high priest of the religious right, had some startling things to say about drugs. i really believe we should treat marijuana the way we treat beverage alcohol, mr. robertson said recently. i have never used marijuana, and i don t intend to, he said, but it s just one of those things that, well, i think this war on drugs just hasn t succeeded. the reason robertson is for legalizing marijuana is that it has created a prison problem in america that is well beyond what most americans imagine. he s right. here are the numbers. the total number of americans under correctional supervision, prison, parole, et cetera, is 7.1 million, more than