The Last of the Original “Astronaut Wives”
Rene Carpenter was ahead of her time, and highly accomplished in her own right.
Rene Carpenter — the wife of America’s fourth man into space, Scott Carpenter — was extremely supportive of her husband’s career, but wasn’t content with the subservient role NASA assigned her.
Born in Iowa in 1928, Rene’s mother — who had a job, which was fairly unusual in the 1920s — had divorced when Rene was 2, which was also unusual for the era. Her new husband adopted the 8-year-old Rene, which she pronounced “Reen” throughout her life, and the family moved to Boulder, Colorado.
After graduating from Boulder High School, she met Scott Carpenter, and they married in Boulder in 1948. Carpenter, about 3 years her senior, had grown up in Boulder, and was friends with a classmate at University Hill Elementary School: Anne … who later became my mother-in-law. My wife remembers the Carpenters, and that Rene was “a sweet lady.”
Scott became a pilot in the U.S. Navy — Rene pinned his aviator wings on him upon his graduation from flight school in April 1951. He was a good pilot: his skipper recommended…