Rene Carpenter, the NASA-breaking astronaut's wife, died at the age of 92.
The last living member of the Mercury 7 couples who helped define America’s early space program, she went on to become a writer and television host.
Rene Carpenter, the last surviving member of the much-glorified cohort of Mercury 7 astronauts and their wives, whom Tom Wolfe immortalized in his best-selling 1979 book “The Right Stuff,” died on Friday in Denver. She was 92.
Ms. Carpenter, who retained that surname even after she was divorced and remarried, was the wife of Scott Carpenter, one of the seven original Project Mercury astronauts, who carried the hopes of an anxious nation on their shoulders in the early days of space travel.
Thanks to NASA’s public relations machinery and coverage in publications like Life magazine, these 14 men and women were lionized at a time when the United States was seeking to catch the Soviet Union in the space race. Ms. Carpenter became the last living member of the group with the death of Annie Glenn, the wife of the astronaut John Glenn, in May at the age of 100.
Perhaps more than any of the seven wives, Ms. Carpenter broke the NASA mold, emerging with her own identity. On photo shoots, when the women were told to wear solid pastel dresses, Ms. Carpenter, a striking platinum blonde, showed up in a sleeveless red floral pattern. People magazine called her “the undisputed prom queen of the early space program.”
