Poor Scott Carpenter (he and Glenn are the last 2 Mercury astronauts still
left standing now) - he got all caught up during his Aurora 7 mission by the
wonders of space and made a bunch of errors, including a splashdown over
200 miles from his planned target zone.

Worse than all that, Carpenter dared to show feelings and emotions - a
male astronaut in the early Sixties showing his humanity to the public - GASP!

So they make sure Carpenter never flies in space again and then they send
up Schirra who follows the rules to the letter. Human wonder - that's for
the sci-fi books, pal.

So no offense to Schirra, he was just doing his job and knew how to play
the game - that's how he ended up with two more space flights. Of course
he was a hardass on Apollo 7, because he knew he wasn't going to fly after
that. But he cost his two rookie crewmates any chance of ever flying in
space again.

I used to idolize astronauts and think they were the pinnacle of humanity.
Having met a few of the older ones, I know better now. They aren't much
different from professional jocks.