Malcolm Scott Carpenter (born May 1, 1925 in Boulder, Colorado) is a former test pilot, astronaut, and aquanaut. He is best known as one of the original seven astronauts selected for NASA's Project Mercury in April 1959. Scott Carpenter was the second American to orbit the Earth and the fourth American in space, following Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, and John Glenn. Carpenter and Glenn are the last living members of the Mercury Seven.
William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857 – March 8, 1930) was the 27th President of the United States and the 10th Chief Justice of the United States.
Born in 1857 in Cincinnati, Ohio, into the powerful Taft family, Taft graduated from Yale College in 1878, and later graduated from Cincinnati Law School in 1880. After his graduation from Cincinnati Law School, Taft worked in a number of local legal positions until being appointed a judge to the Ohio Superior Court in 1887. Taft was then appointed Solicitor General of the United States in 1890 and a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in 1891. In 1900, President William McKinley appointed Taft Governor-General of the Philippines. In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt, then a political ally of Taft, appointed Taft Secretary of War in order to groom Taft as his successor to the presidency.
