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Gordon Cooper

January 20, 2023

Leroy Gordon "Gordo" Cooper Jr. (March 6, 1927 – October 4, 2004) was an American aerospace engineer, test pilot, United States Air Force pilot, and the youngest of the seven original astronauts in Project Mercury, the first human space program of the United States. Cooper learned to fly as a child, and after service in the United States Marine Corps during World War II, he was commissioned into the United States Air Force in 1949. After service as a fighter pilot, he qualified as a test pilot in 1956, and was selected as an astronaut in 1959.

Gordon Cooper
Born
Leroy Gordon Cooper Jr.

(1927-03-06)March 6, 1927
Shawnee, Oklahoma, U.S.
DiedOctober 4, 2004(2004-10-04) (aged 77)
Ventura, California, U.S.
Resting placeAshes flown into outer space
Alma mater
OccupationTest pilot
Awards
Space career
NASA astronaut
RankColonel, USAF
Time in space
9d 09h 14m
Selection1959 NASA Group 1
MissionsMercury-Atlas 9, Gemini 5
Mission insignia
RetirementJuly 31, 1970

In 1963 Cooper piloted the longest and last Mercury spaceflight, Mercury-Atlas 9. During that 34-hour mission he became the first American to spend an entire day in space, the first to sleep in space, and the last American launched on an entirely solo orbital mission. Despite a series of severe equipment failures, he managed to successfully complete the mission under manual control, guiding his spacecraft, which he named Faith 7, to a splashdown just 4 miles (6.4 km) ahead of the recovery ship. Cooper became the first astronaut to make a second orbital flight when he flew as command pilot of Gemini 5 in 1965. Along with pilot Pete Conrad, he set a new space endurance record by traveling 3,312,993 miles (5,331,745 km) in 190 hours and 56 minutes—just short of eight days—showing that astronauts could survive in space for the length of time necessary to go from the Earth to the Moon and back.

Cooper liked to race cars and boats, and entered the $28,000 Salton City 500 miles (800 km) boat race, and the Southwest Championship Drag Boat races in 1965, and the 1967 Orange Bowl Regatta with fire fighter Red Adair. In 1968, he entered the 24 Hours of Daytona, but NASA management ordered him to withdraw due to the dangers involved. After serving as backup commander of the Apollo 10 mission, he was superseded by Alan Shepard, and retired from NASA and the Air Force with the rank of colonel in 1970.

Early life and education

Leroy Gordon Cooper Jr. was born on March 6, 1927, in Shawnee, Oklahoma,[1] the only child of Leroy Gordon Cooper Sr. and his wife Hattie Lee née Herd.[2] His mother was a school teacher. His father enlisted in the United States Navy during World War I, and served on the presidential yacht USS Mayflower. After the war, Cooper Sr. completed his high school education; Hattie Lee was one of his teachers, although she was only two years older than him. He joined the Oklahoma National Guard, flying a Curtiss JN-4 biplane, despite never having formal military pilot training. He graduated from college and law school, and became a state district judge. He was called to active duty during World War II, and served in the Pacific theater in the Judge Advocate General's Corps.[3] He transferred to United States Air Force (USAF) after it was formed in 1947, and was stationed at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii Territory. He retired from the USAF with the rank of colonel in 1957.[4]

Cooper attended Jefferson Elementary School and Shawnee High School,[4] where he was on the football and track teams. During his senior high school year, he played at halfback in the state football championship.[5] He was active in the Boy Scouts of America, where he achieved its second highest rank, Life Scout.[6] His parents owned a Command-Aire 3C3 biplane, and he learned to fly at a young age. He unofficially soloed when he was 12 years old, and earned his pilot's license in a Piper J-3 Cub when he was 16.[4][7] His family moved to Murray, Kentucky, when his father was called back into service, and he graduated from Murray High School in June 1945.[2]

After Cooper learned that the United States Army and Navy flying schools were not taking any more candidates, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.[5] He left for Parris Island as soon as he graduated from high school,[2] but World War II ended before he saw overseas service. He was assigned to the Naval Academy Preparatory School as an alternate for an appointment to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, but the primary appointee was accepted, and Cooper was assigned to guard duty in Washington, D.C. He was serving with the Presidential Honor Guard when he was discharged from the Marine Corps in 1946.[5]

Cooper went to Hawaii to live with his parents. He started attending the University of Hawaii, and bought his own J-3 Cub. There he met his first wife, Trudy B. Olson (1927–1994) of Seattle, through the local flying club. She was active in flying, and would later become the only wife of a Mercury astronaut to have a private pilot license. They were married on August 29, 1947, in Honolulu, when both were 20 years old. They had two daughters.[2][4][8]

Military service

 
USAF Experimental Flight Test School Class 56D. Front row: Captains Gordon Cooper, James Wood, Jack Mayo and Gus Grissom.

At college, Cooper was active in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC),[8] which led to his being commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army in June 1949. He was able to transfer his commission to the United States Air Force in September 1949.[9] He received flight training at Perrin Air Force Base, Texas and Williams Air Force Base, Arizona,[4] in the T-6 Texan.[8]

On completion of his flight training in 1950, Cooper was posted to Landstuhl Air Base, West Germany, where he flew F-84 Thunderjets and F-86 Sabres for four years. He became a flight commander of the 525th Fighter Bomber Squadron. While in Germany, he attended the European Extension of the University of Maryland. He returned to the United States in 1954, and studied for two years at the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) in Ohio. He completed his Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering there on August 28, 1956.[4][10]

While at AFIT, Cooper met Gus Grissom, a fellow USAF officer, and the two became good friends. They were involved in an accident on takeoff from Lowry Field on June 23, 1956, when the Lockheed T-33 Cooper was piloting suddenly lost power. He aborted the takeoff, but the landing gear collapsed and the aircraft skidded erratically for 2,000 feet (610 m), and crashed at the end of the runway, bursting into flames. Cooper and Grissom escaped unscathed, although the aircraft was a total loss.[10]

Cooper and Grissom attended the USAF Experimental Flight Test Pilot School (Class 56D) at Edwards Air Force Base in California in 1956.[10] After graduation Cooper was posted to the Flight Test Engineering Division at Edwards, where he served as a test pilot and project manager testing the F-102A and F-106B.[2] He also flew the T-28, T-37, F-86, F-100 and F-104.[11] By the time he left Edwards, he had logged more than 2,000 hours of flight time, of which 1,600 hours were in jet aircraft.[10]

NASA career

Project Mercury

Main article: Project Mercury
 
Cooper in his Mercury spacesuit, the Navy Mark IV

In January 1959, Cooper received unexpected orders to report to Washington, D.C. There was no indication what it was about, but his commanding officer, Major General Marcus F. Cooper (no relation) recalled an announcement in the newspaper saying that a contract had been awarded to McDonnell Aircraft in St. Louis, Missouri, to build a space capsule, and advised Cooper not to volunteer for astronaut training. On February 2, 1959, Cooper attended a NASA briefing on Project Mercury and the part astronauts would play in it. Cooper went through the selection process with another 109 pilots,[12] and was not surprised when he was accepted as the youngest of the first seven American astronauts.[13][14]

During the selection interviews, Cooper had been asked about his domestic relationship, and had lied, saying that he and Trudy had a good, stable marriage. In fact, they had separated four months before, and she was living with their daughters in San Diego while he occupied a bachelor's quarters at Edwards. Aware that NASA wanted to project an image of its astronauts as loving family men, and that his story would not stand up to scrutiny, he drove down to San Diego to see Trudy at the first opportunity. Lured by the prospect of a great adventure for herself and her daughters, she agreed to go along with the charade and pretend that they were a happily married couple.[15]

The identities of the Mercury Seven were announced at a press conference at Dolley Madison House in Washington, D.C., on April 9, 1959:[16] Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton.[17] Each was assigned a different portion of the project along with other special assignments. Cooper specialized in the Redstone rocket, which would be used for the first, sub-orbital spaceflights.[18] He also chaired the Emergency Egress Committee, responsible for working out emergency launch pad escape procedures,[19] and engaged Bo Randall to develop a personal survival knife for astronauts to carry.[20]

The astronauts drew their salaries as military officers, and an important component of that was flight pay. In Cooper's case, it amounted to $145 a month (equivalent to $1,348 in 2021). NASA saw no reason to provide the astronauts with aircraft, so they had to fly to meetings around the country on commercial airlines. To continue earning their flight pay, Grissom and Slayton would go out on the weekend to Langley Air Force Base, and attempt to put in the required four hours a month, competing for T-33 aircraft with senior deskbound colonels and generals. Cooper traveled to McGhee Tyson Air National Guard Base in Tennessee, where a friend let him fly higher-performance F-104B jets. This came up when Cooper had lunch with William Hines, a reporter for The Washington Star, and was duly reported in the paper. Cooper then discussed the issue with Congressman James G. Fulton. The matter was taken up by the House Committee on Science and Astronautics. Within weeks the astronauts had priority access to USAF F-102s, something that Cooper considered a "hot plane", but which could still take off from and land at short civilian airfields; but it did not make Cooper popular with senior NASA management.[21][22]

After General Motors executive Ed Cole presented Shepard with a brand-new Chevrolet Corvette, Jim Rathmann, a racing car driver who won the Indianapolis 500 in 1960, and was a Chevrolet dealer in Melbourne, Florida, convinced Cole to turn this into an ongoing marketing campaign. Henceforth, astronauts would be able to lease brand-new Corvettes for a dollar a year. All of the Mercury Seven but Glenn soon took up the offer. Cooper, Grissom and Shepard were soon racing their Corvettes around Cape Canaveral, with the police ignoring their exploits. From a marketing perspective, it was very successful, and helped the highly priced Corvette become established as a desirable brand. Cooper held licenses with the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) and the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). He also enjoyed racing speedboats.[23] [24]

Cooper served as capsule communicator (CAPCOM) for NASA's first sub-orbital spaceflight, by Alan Shepard in Mercury-Redstone 3,[25] and Scott Carpenter's orbital flight on Mercury-Atlas 7,[26] and was backup pilot for Wally Schirra in Mercury-Atlas 8.[4]

Mercury-Atlas 9

Main article: Mercury-Atlas 9

Cooper was designated for the next mission, Mercury-Atlas 9 (MA-9). Apart from the grounded Slayton, he was the only one of the Mercury Seven who had not yet flown in space. [27][24] Cooper's selection was publicly announced on November 14, 1962, with Shepard designated as his backup.[28]

Project Mercury had begun with a goal of ultimately flying an 18-orbit, 27-hour mission, known as the manned one-day mission.[29] On November 9, senior staff at the Manned Spacecraft Center decided to fly a 22-orbit mission as MA-9. Project Mercury still remained years behind the Soviet Union's space program, which had already flown a 64-orbit mission in Vostok 3. When Atlas 130-D, the booster designated for MA-9, first emerged from the factory in San Diego on January 30, 1963, it failed to pass inspection and was returned to the factory.[30] For Schirra's MA-8 mission, 20 modifications had been made to the Mercury spacecraft; for Cooper's MA-9, 183 changes were made.[30][31] Cooper decided to name his spacecraft, Mercury Spacecraft No. 20, Faith 7. NASA public affairs officers could see the newspaper headlines if the spacecraft were lost at sea: "NASA loses Faith".[32]

After an argument with NASA Deputy Administrator Walter C. Williams over last-minute changes to his pressure suit to insert a new medical probe, Cooper was nearly replaced by Shepard.[33] This was followed by Cooper buzzing Hangar S at Cape Canaveral in an F-102 and lighting the afterburner.[33] Williams told Slayton he was prepared to replace Cooper with Shepard. They decided not to, but not to let Cooper know immediately. Instead, Slayton told Cooper that Williams was looking to ground whoever buzzed Hangar S.[34] According to Cooper, Slayton later told him that President John F. Kennedy had intervened to prevent his removal.[33]

Cooper was launched into space on May 15, 1963, aboard the Faith 7 spacecraft, for what turned out to be the last of the Project Mercury missions. Because MA-9 would orbit over nearly every part of Earth from 33 degrees north to 33 degrees south,[35] a total of 28 ships, 171 aircraft, and 18,000 servicemen were assigned to support the mission.[35] He orbited the Earth 22 times and logged more time in space than all five previous Mercury astronauts combined: 34 hours, 19 minutes, and 49 seconds. Cooper achieved an altitude of 165.9 miles (267 km) at apogee. He was the first American astronaut to sleep, not only in orbit,[2][36] but on the launch pad during a countdown.[37]

 
Faith 7 is currently on display at Space Center Houston

There were several mission-threatening technical problems toward the end of Faith 7's flight. During the 19th orbit, the capsule had a power failure. Carbon dioxide levels began rising, both in Cooper's suit and in the cabin, and the cabin temperature climbed to over 130 °F (54 °C). The clock and then the gyroscopes failed, but the radio, which was connected directly to the battery, remained working, and allowed Cooper to communicate with the mission controllers.[38] Like all Mercury flights, MA-9 was designed for fully automatic control, a controversial engineering decision which reduced the role of an astronaut to that of a passenger, and prompted Chuck Yeager to describe Mercury astronauts as "Spam in a can".[39] "This flight would put an end to all that nonsense," Cooper later wrote. "My electronics were shot and a pilot had the stick."[40]

Turning to his understanding of star patterns, Cooper took manual control of the tiny capsule and successfully estimated the correct pitch for re-entry into the atmosphere.[41] Precision was needed in the calculation; small errors in timing or orientation could produce large errors in the landing point. Cooper drew lines on the capsule window to help him check his orientation before firing the re-entry rockets. "So I used my wrist watch for time," he later recalled, "my eyeballs out the window for attitude. Then I fired my retrorockets at the right time and landed right by the carrier."[42]

Faith 7 splashed down four miles (6.4 km) ahead of the recovery ship, the aircraft carrier USS Kearsarge. Faith 7 was hoisted on board by a helicopter with Cooper still inside. Once on deck he used the explosive bolts to blow open the hatch. Postflight inspections and analyses studied the causes and nature of the electrical problems that had plagued the final hours of the flight, but no fault was found with the performance of the pilot.[43]

On May 22, New York City gave Cooper a ticker-tape parade witnessed by more than four million spectators. The parade concluded with a congratulatory luncheon at the Waldorf-Astoria attended by 1,900 people, where dignitaries such as Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson and former president Herbert Hoover made speeches honoring Cooper.[44]

Project Gemini

Main article: Gemini 5
 
Cooper began the tradition of NASA mission insignia with this design for Gemini 5.

MA-9 was the last of the Project Mercury flights. Walt Williams and others wanted to follow up with a three-day Mercury-Atlas 10 (MA-10) mission, but NASA HQ had already announced that there would be no MA-10 if MA-9 was successful.[32] Shepard in particular was eager to fly the mission, for which he had been designated.[45] He even attempted to enlist the support of President Kennedy.[46] An official decision that there would be no MA-10 was made by NASA Administrator James E. Webb on June 22, 1963.[43] Had the mission been approved, Shepard might not have flown it, as he was grounded in October 1963,[47] and MA-10 might well have been flown by Cooper, who was his backup.[45] In January 1964 the press reported that the Democratic Party of Oklahoma discussed running Cooper for the United States Senate.[48]

Project Mercury was followed by Project Gemini, which took its name from the fact that it carried two men instead of just one.[49] Slayton designated Cooper as commander of Gemini 5, an eight-day, 120-orbit mission.[47] Cooper's assignment was officially announced on February 8, 1965. Pete Conrad, one of the nine astronauts selected in 1962 was designated as his co-pilot, with Neil Armstrong and Elliot See as their respective backups. On July 22, Cooper and Conrad went through a rehearsal of a double launch of Gemini atop a Titan II booster from Launch Complex 19 and an Atlas-Agena target vehicle from Launch Complex 14. At the end of the successful test, the erector could not be raised, and the two astronauts had to be retrieved with a cherry picker, an escape device that Cooper had devised for Project Mercury and insisted be retained for Gemini.[50]

 
Cooper's wife Trudy watches the launch of Gemini 5 with their teenage daughters, Cam and Jan

Cooper and Conrad wanted to name their spacecraft Lady Bird after Lady Bird Johnson, the First Lady of the United States, but Webb turned down their request; he wanted to "depersonalize" the space program.[51] Cooper and Conrad then came up with the idea of a mission patch, similar to the organizational emblems worn by military units. The patch was intended to commemorate all the hundreds of people directly involved, not just the astronauts.[52] Cooper and Conrad chose an embroidered cloth patch sporting the names of the two crew members, a Conestoga wagon, and the slogan "8 Days or Bust" which referred to the expected mission duration.[53] Webb ultimately approved the design, but insisted on the removal of the slogan from the official version of the patch, feeling it placed too much emphasis on the mission length and not the experiments, and fearing the public might see the mission as a failure if it did not last the full duration. The patch was worn on the right breast of the astronauts' uniforms below their nameplates and opposite the NASA emblems worn on the left.[53][54]

The mission was postponed from August 9 to 19 to give Cooper and Conrad more time to train, and was then delayed for two days due to a storm. Gemini 5 was launched at 09:00 on August 21, 1965. The Titan II booster placed them in a 163 by 349 kilometers (101 by 217 mi) orbit. Cooper's biggest concern was the fuel cell. To make it last eight days, Cooper intended to operate it at a low pressure, but when it started to dip too low the Flight Controllers advised him to switch on the oxygen heater. It eventually stabilized at 49 newtons per square centimetre (71 psi)—lower than it had ever been operated at before. While MA-9 had become uncomfortably warm, Gemini 5 became cold. There were also problems with the Orbit Attitude and Maneuvering System thrusters, which became erratic, and two of them failed completely.[55]

 
Pete Conrad (left) and Cooper on deck of recovery carrier USS Lake Champlain after Gemini 5 mission

Gemini 5 was originally intended to practice orbital rendezvous with an Agena target vehicle, but this had been deferred to a later mission owing to problems with the Agena.[56] Nonetheless, Cooper practiced bringing his spacecraft to a predetermined location in space. This raised confidence for achieving rendezvous with an actual spacecraft on subsequent missions, and ultimately in lunar orbit. Cooper and Conrad were able to carry out all but one of the scheduled experiments, most of which were related to orbital photography. [57]

The mission was cut short by the appearance of Hurricane Betsy in the planned recovery area. Cooper fired the retrorockets on the 120th orbit. Splashdown was 130 kilometers (81 mi) short of the target. A computer error had set the Earth's rotation at 360 degrees per day whereas it is actually 360.98. The difference was significant in a spacecraft. The error would have been larger had Cooper not recognized the problem when the reentry gauge indicated that they were too high, and attempted to compensate by increasing the bank angle from 53 to 90 degrees to the left to increase the drag. Helicopters plucked them from the sea and took them to the recovery ship, the aircraft carrier USS Lake Champlain.[57]

The two astronauts established a new space endurance record by traveling a distance of 3,312,993 miles (5,331,745 km) in 190 hours and 56 minutes—just short of eight days—showing that astronauts could survive in space for the length of time necessary to go from the Earth to the Moon and back. Cooper became the first astronaut to make a second orbital flight.[58]

Cooper served as backup Command Pilot for Gemini 12, the last of the Gemini missions, with Gene Cernan as his pilot.[59]

Project Apollo

In November 1964, Cooper entered the $28,000 Salton City 500 miles (800 km) boat race with racehorse owner Ogden Phipps and racing car driver Chuck Daigh.[60] They were in fourth place when a cracked motor forced them to withdraw. The next year Cooper and Grissom had an entry in the race, but were disqualified after failing to make a mandatory meeting. Cooper competed in the Southwest Championship Drag Boat races at La Porte, Texas, later in 1965,[61] and in the 1967 Orange Bowl Regatta with fire fighter Red Adair.[62] In 1968, he entered the 24 Hours of Daytona with Charles Buckley, the NASA chief of security at the Kennedy Space Center. The night before the race, NASA management ordered him to withdraw due to the dangers involved.[63] Cooper upset NASA management by quipping to the press that "NASA wants astronauts to be tiddlywinks players."[63]

 
Apollo 10 backup crew (left to right) Cooper, Edgar Mitchell, and Donn Eisele during water egress training in April 1969.

Cooper was selected as backup commander for the May 1969 Apollo 10 mission. This placed him in line for the position of commander of Apollo 13, according to the usual crew rotation procedure established by Slayton as Director of Flight Crew Operations. However, when Shepard, the Chief of the Astronaut Office, returned to flight status in May 1969, Slayton replaced Cooper with Shepard as commander of this crew. This mission subsequently became Apollo 14 to give Shepard more time to train.[2][64] Loss of this command placed Cooper further down the flight rotation, meaning he would not fly until one of the later flights, if ever.[65]

Slayton alleged that Cooper had developed a lax attitude towards training during the Gemini program; for the Gemini 5 mission, other astronauts had to coax him into the simulator.[66] However, according to Walter Cunningham, Cooper and Scott Carpenter were the only Mercury astronauts who consistently attended geology classes.[67] Slayton later asserted that he never intended to rotate Cooper to another mission, and assigned him to the Apollo 10 backup crew simply because of a lack of qualified astronauts with command experience at the time. Slayton noted that Cooper had a slim chance of receiving the Apollo 13 command if he did an outstanding job as backup commander of Apollo 10, but Slayton felt that Cooper did not.[68]

Dismayed by his stalled astronaut career, Cooper retired from NASA and the USAF on July 31, 1970, with the rank of colonel, having flown 222 hours in space.[2] Soon after he divorced Trudy,[69] he married Suzan Taylor, a schoolteacher, in 1972.[69] They had two daughters: Colleen Taylor, born in 1979; and Elizabeth Jo, born in 1980. They remained married until his death in 2004.[70]

Later life

 
Cooper at an induction ceremony of the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2004. Astronauts John Young and Gene Cernan stand behind him.

After leaving NASA, Cooper served on several corporate boards and as technical consultant for more than a dozen companies in fields ranging from high performance boat design to energy, construction, and aircraft design.[58] Between 1962 and 1967, he was president of Performance Unlimited, Inc., a manufacturer and distributor of racing and marine engines, and fiberglass boats. He was president of GCR, which designed, tested and raced championship cars, conducted tire tests for race cars, and worked on installation of turbine engines on cars. He served on the board of Teletest, which designed and installed advanced telemetry systems; Doubloon, which designed and built treasure hunting equipment; and Cosmos, which conducted archeological exploration projects.[58]

As part owner and race project manager of the Profile Race Team from 1968 to 1970, Cooper designed and raced high performance boats. Between 1968 and 1974 he served as a technical consultant at Republic Corp., and General Motors, Ford and Chrysler Motor Companies, where he was a consultant on design and construction of various automotive components. He was also a technical consultant for Canaveral International, Inc., for which he developed technical products and served in public relations on its land development projects, and served on the board of directors of APECO, Campcom LowCom, and Crafttech.[58]

Cooper was president of his own consulting firm, Gordon Cooper & Associates, Inc., which was involved in technical projects ranging from airline and aerospace fields to land and hotel development.[58] From 1973 to 1975, he worked for The Walt Disney Company as the vice president of research and development for Epcot.[58] In 1989, he became the chief executive of Galaxy Group, Inc., a company which designed and improved small airplanes.[71][72]

UFO sightings

In Cooper's autobiography, Leap of Faith, co-authored with Bruce Henderson, he recounted his experiences with the Air Force and NASA, along with his efforts to expose an alleged UFO conspiracy theory.[73] In his review of the book, space historian Robert Pearlman wrote: "While no one can argue with someone's experiences, in the case of Cooper's own sightings, I found some difficulty understanding how someone so connected with ground breaking technology and science could easily embrace ideas such as extraterrestrial visits with little more than anecdotal evidence."[74]

Cooper claimed to have seen his first UFO while flying over West Germany in 1951,[75] although he denied reports he had seen a UFO during his Mercury flight.[76] On May 3, 1957, when Cooper was at Edwards, he had a crew set up an Askania Cinetheodolite precision landing system on a dry lake bed. This cinetheodolite system could take pictures at thirty frames per second as an aircraft landed. The crew consisted of James Bittick and Jack Gettys, who began work at the site just before 08:00, with both still and motion picture cameras. According to Cooper's accounts, when they returned later that morning they reported that they had seen a "strange-looking, saucer-like" aircraft that did not make a sound either on landing or take-off.[77]

Cooper recalled that these men, who saw experimental aircraft on a regular basis as part of their job, were clearly unnerved. They explained how the saucer hovered over them, landed 50 yards (46 m) away using three extended landing gears, and then took off as they approached for a closer look. He called a special Pentagon number to call to report such incidents, and was instructed to have their film developed, but to make no prints of it, and send it in to the Pentagon right away in a locked courier pouch.[78] As Cooper had not been instructed to not look at the negatives before sending them, he did. Cooper claimed that the quality of the photography was excellent, and what he saw was exactly what Bittick and Gettys had described to him. He expected that there would be a follow-up investigation, since an aircraft of unknown origin had landed at a classified military installation, but never heard about the incident again. He was never able to track down what happened to those photos, and assumed they ended up going to the Air Force's official UFO investigation, Project Blue Book, which was based at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.[78]

Cooper claimed until his death that the U.S. government was indeed covering up information about UFOs. He pointed out that there were hundreds of reports made by his fellow pilots, many coming from military jet pilots sent to respond to radar or visual sightings.[42] In his memoirs, Cooper wrote he had seen unexplained aircraft several times during his career, and that hundreds of reports had been made.[42] In 1978 he testified before the UN on the topic.[79] Throughout his later life Cooper repeatedly expressed in interviews that he had seen UFOs, and described his recollections for the 2003 documentary Out of the Blue.[42]

Death

[80] Cooper died at age 77 from heart failure at his home in Ventura, California, on October 4, 2004. Cooper was the last American to have flown a solo mission in space until, on June 21, 2004, Mike Melvill piloted SpaceShipOne to an altitude of 100.1 kilometers (62.2 mi) on its first spaceflight.[81][70]

A portion of Cooper's ashes (along with those of Star Trek actor James Doohan and 206 others) was launched from New Mexico on April 29, 2007, on a sub-orbital memorial flight by a privately owned UP Aerospace SpaceLoft XL sounding rocket. The capsule carrying the ashes fell back toward Earth as planned; it was lost in mountainous landscape. The search was obstructed by bad weather, but after a few weeks the capsule was found, and the ashes it carried were returned to the families.[82][83][84] The ashes were then launched on the Explorers orbital mission on August 3, 2008, but were lost when the Falcon 1 rocket failed two minutes into the flight.[84][85]

On May 22, 2012, another portion of Cooper's ashes was among those of 308 people included on the SpaceX COTS Demo Flight 2 that was bound for the International Space Station.[84] This flight, using the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and the Dragon capsule, was uncrewed. The second stage and the burial canister remained in the initial orbit that the Dragon C2+ was inserted into, and burned up in the Earth's atmosphere a month later.[86]

Awards and honors

 
Cooper at a parade given in his honor

Cooper received many awards, including the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross with oak leaf cluster, the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, the Collier Trophy,[87] the Harmon Trophy, the DeMolay Legion of Honor, the John F. Kennedy Trophy,[58] the Iven C. Kincheloe Award,[88] the Air Force Association Trophy, the John J. Montgomery Award, the General Thomas D. White Trophy,[89] the University of Hawaii Regents Medal, the Columbus Medal, and the Silver Antelope Award.[58] He received an honorary D.Sc. from Oklahoma State University in 1967.[58]

He was one of five Oklahoman astronauts inducted into the Oklahoma Aviation and Space Hall of Fame in 1980.[90] He was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1981,[71][91] and the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame on May 11, 1990.[92][93]

Cooper was a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the American Astronautical Society, Scottish Rite and York Rite Masons, Shriners, the Royal Order of Jesters, the Rotary Club, Order of Daedalians, Confederate Air Force, Adventurers' Club of Los Angeles, and Boy Scouts of America.[58] He was a Master Mason (member of Carbondale Lodge # 82 in Carbondale, Colorado), and was given the honorary 33rd Degree by the Scottish Rite Masonic body.[94]

Cultural influence

Cooper's Mercury astronaut career and appealing personality were depicted in the 1983 film The Right Stuff, in which he was portrayed by Dennis Quaid. Cooper worked closely with the production company, and every line uttered by Quaid was reportedly attributable to Cooper's recollection. Quaid met with Cooper before the casting call and learned his mannerisms. Quaid had his hair cut and dyed to match Cooper's appearance in the 1950s and 1960s.[95]

Cooper was later portrayed by Robert C. Treveiler in the 1998 HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, and by Bret Harrison in the 2015 ABC TV series The Astronaut Wives Club. That year, he was also portrayed by Colin Hanks in the Season 3 episode "Oklahoma" of Drunk History, written by Laura Steinel, which retold the story of his Mercury-Atlas 9 flight.[95]

While he was in space, Cooper recorded dark spots he noticed in the waters of the Caribbean. He believed these anomalies may be the locations of shipwrecks. The 2017 Discovery Channel docu-series Cooper's Treasure followed by Darrell Miklos as he searched through Cooper's files to discover the location of the suspected shipwrecks.[96][97]

Cooper appeared as himself in an episode of the television series CHiPs, and during the early 1980s made regular call-in appearances on chat shows hosted by David Letterman, Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas. The Thunderbirds character Gordon Tracy was named after him. He was also a major contributor to the book In the Shadow of the Moon (published after his death), which offered his final published thoughts on his life and career.[98]

In 2019, National Geographic began filming a television series based on Tom Wolfe's 1979 book The Right Stuff. Colin O'Donoghue is portraying Gordon Cooper. While the series was set to air in spring of 2020,[99] the first two episodes aired on October 9, 2020, on subscription service Disney+.

The 2019 series For All Mankind has Gordon "Gordo" Stevens, a character based in part on him.

Notes

  1. ^ Burgess 2011, p. 336.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Gray, Tara. "L. Gordon Cooper Jr". 40th Anniversary of Mercury 7. NASA. Retrieved July 10, 2015.
  3. ^ Cooper & Henderson 2000, pp. 93–94.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Burgess 2011, p. 337.
  5. ^ a b c Cooper & Henderson 2000, p. 102.
  6. ^ . Boy Scouts of America. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved January 2, 2018.
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References

External links

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gordon Cooper.
  • Why Did 'Gordo' Tell UFO Stories?
  • "Remembering 'Gordo'" – NASA memories of Gordon Cooper
  • "LEROY GORDON COOPER, JR. (COLONEL, USAF, RET.) NASA ASTRONAUT (DECEASED)" (PDF). NASA. October 2004. Retrieved January 15, 2021.

January 20, 2023
gordon, cooper, leroy, gordon, gordo, cooper, march, 1927, october, 2004, american, aerospace, engineer, test, pilot, united, states, force, pilot, youngest, seven, original, astronauts, project, mercury, first, human, space, program, united, states, cooper, l. Leroy Gordon Gordo Cooper Jr March 6 1927 October 4 2004 was an American aerospace engineer test pilot United States Air Force pilot and the youngest of the seven original astronauts in Project Mercury the first human space program of the United States Cooper learned to fly as a child and after service in the United States Marine Corps during World War II he was commissioned into the United States Air Force in 1949 After service as a fighter pilot he qualified as a test pilot in 1956 and was selected as an astronaut in 1959 Gordon CooperBornLeroy Gordon Cooper Jr 1927 03 06 March 6 1927Shawnee Oklahoma U S DiedOctober 4 2004 2004 10 04 aged 77 Ventura California U S Resting placeAshes flown into outer spaceAlma materUniversity of HawaiiUniversity of MarylandAir Force Institute of Technology BS OccupationTest pilotAwardsLegion of MeritDistinguished Flying Cross 2 NASA Distinguished Service MedalNASA Exceptional Service MedalSpace careerNASA astronautRankColonel USAFTime in space9d 09h 14mSelection1959 NASA Group 1MissionsMercury Atlas 9 Gemini 5Mission insigniaRetirementJuly 31 1970In 1963 Cooper piloted the longest and last Mercury spaceflight Mercury Atlas 9 During that 34 hour mission he became the first American to spend an entire day in space the first to sleep in space and the last American launched on an entirely solo orbital mission Despite a series of severe equipment failures he managed to successfully complete the mission under manual control guiding his spacecraft which he named Faith 7 to a splashdown just 4 miles 6 4 km ahead of the recovery ship Cooper became the first astronaut to make a second orbital flight when he flew as command pilot of Gemini 5 in 1965 Along with pilot Pete Conrad he set a new space endurance record by traveling 3 312 993 miles 5 331 745 km in 190 hours and 56 minutes just short of eight days showing that astronauts could survive in space for the length of time necessary to go from the Earth to the Moon and back Cooper liked to race cars and boats and entered the 28 000 Salton City 500 miles 800 km boat race and the Southwest Championship Drag Boat races in 1965 and the 1967 Orange Bowl Regatta with fire fighter Red Adair In 1968 he entered the 24 Hours of Daytona but NASA management ordered him to withdraw due to the dangers involved After serving as backup commander of the Apollo 10 mission he was superseded by Alan Shepard and retired from NASA and the Air Force with the rank of colonel in 1970 Contents 1 Early life and education 2 Military service 3 NASA career 3 1 Project Mercury 3 2 Mercury Atlas 9 3 3 Project Gemini 3 4 Project Apollo 4 Later life 5 UFO sightings 6 Death 7 Awards and honors 8 Cultural influence 9 Notes 10 References 11 External linksEarly life and education EditLeroy Gordon Cooper Jr was born on March 6 1927 in Shawnee Oklahoma 1 the only child of Leroy Gordon Cooper Sr and his wife Hattie Lee nee Herd 2 His mother was a school teacher His father enlisted in the United States Navy during World War I and served on the presidential yacht USS Mayflower After the war Cooper Sr completed his high school education Hattie Lee was one of his teachers although she was only two years older than him He joined the Oklahoma National Guard flying a Curtiss JN 4 biplane despite never having formal military pilot training He graduated from college and law school and became a state district judge He was called to active duty during World War II and served in the Pacific theater in the Judge Advocate General s Corps 3 He transferred to United States Air Force USAF after it was formed in 1947 and was stationed at Hickam Air Force Base Hawaii Territory He retired from the USAF with the rank of colonel in 1957 4 Cooper attended Jefferson Elementary School and Shawnee High School 4 where he was on the football and track teams During his senior high school year he played at halfback in the state football championship 5 He was active in the Boy Scouts of America where he achieved its second highest rank Life Scout 6 His parents owned a Command Aire 3C3 biplane and he learned to fly at a young age He unofficially soloed when he was 12 years old and earned his pilot s license in a Piper J 3 Cub when he was 16 4 7 His family moved to Murray Kentucky when his father was called back into service and he graduated from Murray High School in June 1945 2 After Cooper learned that the United States Army and Navy flying schools were not taking any more candidates he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps 5 He left for Parris Island as soon as he graduated from high school 2 but World War II ended before he saw overseas service He was assigned to the Naval Academy Preparatory School as an alternate for an appointment to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis Maryland but the primary appointee was accepted and Cooper was assigned to guard duty in Washington D C He was serving with the Presidential Honor Guard when he was discharged from the Marine Corps in 1946 5 Cooper went to Hawaii to live with his parents He started attending the University of Hawaii and bought his own J 3 Cub There he met his first wife Trudy B Olson 1927 1994 of Seattle through the local flying club She was active in flying and would later become the only wife of a Mercury astronaut to have a private pilot license They were married on August 29 1947 in Honolulu when both were 20 years old They had two daughters 2 4 8 Military service Edit USAF Experimental Flight Test School Class 56D Front row Captains Gordon Cooper James Wood Jack Mayo and Gus Grissom At college Cooper was active in the Reserve Officers Training Corps ROTC 8 which led to his being commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U S Army in June 1949 He was able to transfer his commission to the United States Air Force in September 1949 9 He received flight training at Perrin Air Force Base Texas and Williams Air Force Base Arizona 4 in the T 6 Texan 8 On completion of his flight training in 1950 Cooper was posted to Landstuhl Air Base West Germany where he flew F 84 Thunderjets and F 86 Sabres for four years He became a flight commander of the 525th Fighter Bomber Squadron While in Germany he attended the European Extension of the University of Maryland He returned to the United States in 1954 and studied for two years at the U S Air Force Institute of Technology AFIT in Ohio He completed his Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering there on August 28 1956 4 10 While at AFIT Cooper met Gus Grissom a fellow USAF officer and the two became good friends They were involved in an accident on takeoff from Lowry Field on June 23 1956 when the Lockheed T 33 Cooper was piloting suddenly lost power He aborted the takeoff but the landing gear collapsed and the aircraft skidded erratically for 2 000 feet 610 m and crashed at the end of the runway bursting into flames Cooper and Grissom escaped unscathed although the aircraft was a total loss 10 Cooper and Grissom attended the USAF Experimental Flight Test Pilot School Class 56D at Edwards Air Force Base in California in 1956 10 After graduation Cooper was posted to the Flight Test Engineering Division at Edwards where he served as a test pilot and project manager testing the F 102A and F 106B 2 He also flew the T 28 T 37 F 86 F 100 and F 104 11 By the time he left Edwards he had logged more than 2 000 hours of flight time of which 1 600 hours were in jet aircraft 10 NASA career EditProject Mercury Edit Main article Project Mercury Cooper in his Mercury spacesuit the Navy Mark IV In January 1959 Cooper received unexpected orders to report to Washington D C There was no indication what it was about but his commanding officer Major General Marcus F Cooper no relation recalled an announcement in the newspaper saying that a contract had been awarded to McDonnell Aircraft in St Louis Missouri to build a space capsule and advised Cooper not to volunteer for astronaut training On February 2 1959 Cooper attended a NASA briefing on Project Mercury and the part astronauts would play in it Cooper went through the selection process with another 109 pilots 12 and was not surprised when he was accepted as the youngest of the first seven American astronauts 13 14 During the selection interviews Cooper had been asked about his domestic relationship and had lied saying that he and Trudy had a good stable marriage In fact they had separated four months before and she was living with their daughters in San Diego while he occupied a bachelor s quarters at Edwards Aware that NASA wanted to project an image of its astronauts as loving family men and that his story would not stand up to scrutiny he drove down to San Diego to see Trudy at the first opportunity Lured by the prospect of a great adventure for herself and her daughters she agreed to go along with the charade and pretend that they were a happily married couple 15 The identities of the Mercury Seven were announced at a press conference at Dolley Madison House in Washington D C on April 9 1959 16 Scott Carpenter Gordon Cooper John Glenn Gus Grissom Wally Schirra Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton 17 Each was assigned a different portion of the project along with other special assignments Cooper specialized in the Redstone rocket which would be used for the first sub orbital spaceflights 18 He also chaired the Emergency Egress Committee responsible for working out emergency launch pad escape procedures 19 and engaged Bo Randall to develop a personal survival knife for astronauts to carry 20 The astronauts drew their salaries as military officers and an important component of that was flight pay In Cooper s case it amounted to 145 a month equivalent to 1 348 in 2021 NASA saw no reason to provide the astronauts with aircraft so they had to fly to meetings around the country on commercial airlines To continue earning their flight pay Grissom and Slayton would go out on the weekend to Langley Air Force Base and attempt to put in the required four hours a month competing for T 33 aircraft with senior deskbound colonels and generals Cooper traveled to McGhee Tyson Air National Guard Base in Tennessee where a friend let him fly higher performance F 104B jets This came up when Cooper had lunch with William Hines a reporter for The Washington Star and was duly reported in the paper Cooper then discussed the issue with Congressman James G Fulton The matter was taken up by the House Committee on Science and Astronautics Within weeks the astronauts had priority access to USAF F 102s something that Cooper considered a hot plane but which could still take off from and land at short civilian airfields but it did not make Cooper popular with senior NASA management 21 22 After General Motors executive Ed Cole presented Shepard with a brand new Chevrolet Corvette Jim Rathmann a racing car driver who won the Indianapolis 500 in 1960 and was a Chevrolet dealer in Melbourne Florida convinced Cole to turn this into an ongoing marketing campaign Henceforth astronauts would be able to lease brand new Corvettes for a dollar a year All of the Mercury Seven but Glenn soon took up the offer Cooper Grissom and Shepard were soon racing their Corvettes around Cape Canaveral with the police ignoring their exploits From a marketing perspective it was very successful and helped the highly priced Corvette become established as a desirable brand Cooper held licenses with the Sports Car Club of America SCCA and the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing NASCAR He also enjoyed racing speedboats 23 24 Cooper served as capsule communicator CAPCOM for NASA s first sub orbital spaceflight by Alan Shepard in Mercury Redstone 3 25 and Scott Carpenter s orbital flight on Mercury Atlas 7 26 and was backup pilot for Wally Schirra in Mercury Atlas 8 4 Mercury Atlas 9 Edit Main article Mercury Atlas 9 Mercury Atlas 9 lifts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 14 on May 15 1963 Cooper was designated for the next mission Mercury Atlas 9 MA 9 Apart from the grounded Slayton he was the only one of the Mercury Seven who had not yet flown in space 27 24 Cooper s selection was publicly announced on November 14 1962 with Shepard designated as his backup 28 Project Mercury had begun with a goal of ultimately flying an 18 orbit 27 hour mission known as the manned one day mission 29 On November 9 senior staff at the Manned Spacecraft Center decided to fly a 22 orbit mission as MA 9 Project Mercury still remained years behind the Soviet Union s space program which had already flown a 64 orbit mission in Vostok 3 When Atlas 130 D the booster designated for MA 9 first emerged from the factory in San Diego on January 30 1963 it failed to pass inspection and was returned to the factory 30 For Schirra s MA 8 mission 20 modifications had been made to the Mercury spacecraft for Cooper s MA 9 183 changes were made 30 31 Cooper decided to name his spacecraft Mercury Spacecraft No 20 Faith 7 NASA public affairs officers could see the newspaper headlines if the spacecraft were lost at sea NASA loses Faith 32 After an argument with NASA Deputy Administrator Walter C Williams over last minute changes to his pressure suit to insert a new medical probe Cooper was nearly replaced by Shepard 33 This was followed by Cooper buzzing Hangar S at Cape Canaveral in an F 102 and lighting the afterburner 33 Williams told Slayton he was prepared to replace Cooper with Shepard They decided not to but not to let Cooper know immediately Instead Slayton told Cooper that Williams was looking to ground whoever buzzed Hangar S 34 According to Cooper Slayton later told him that President John F Kennedy had intervened to prevent his removal 33 Cooper was launched into space on May 15 1963 aboard the Faith 7 spacecraft for what turned out to be the last of the Project Mercury missions Because MA 9 would orbit over nearly every part of Earth from 33 degrees north to 33 degrees south 35 a total of 28 ships 171 aircraft and 18 000 servicemen were assigned to support the mission 35 He orbited the Earth 22 times and logged more time in space than all five previous Mercury astronauts combined 34 hours 19 minutes and 49 seconds Cooper achieved an altitude of 165 9 miles 267 km at apogee He was the first American astronaut to sleep not only in orbit 2 36 but on the launch pad during a countdown 37 Faith 7 is currently on display at Space Center Houston There were several mission threatening technical problems toward the end of Faith 7 s flight During the 19th orbit the capsule had a power failure Carbon dioxide levels began rising both in Cooper s suit and in the cabin and the cabin temperature climbed to over 130 F 54 C The clock and then the gyroscopes failed but the radio which was connected directly to the battery remained working and allowed Cooper to communicate with the mission controllers 38 Like all Mercury flights MA 9 was designed for fully automatic control a controversial engineering decision which reduced the role of an astronaut to that of a passenger and prompted Chuck Yeager to describe Mercury astronauts as Spam in a can 39 This flight would put an end to all that nonsense Cooper later wrote My electronics were shot and a pilot had the stick 40 Turning to his understanding of star patterns Cooper took manual control of the tiny capsule and successfully estimated the correct pitch for re entry into the atmosphere 41 Precision was needed in the calculation small errors in timing or orientation could produce large errors in the landing point Cooper drew lines on the capsule window to help him check his orientation before firing the re entry rockets So I used my wrist watch for time he later recalled my eyeballs out the window for attitude Then I fired my retrorockets at the right time and landed right by the carrier 42 Faith 7 splashed down four miles 6 4 km ahead of the recovery ship the aircraft carrier USS Kearsarge Faith 7 was hoisted on board by a helicopter with Cooper still inside Once on deck he used the explosive bolts to blow open the hatch Postflight inspections and analyses studied the causes and nature of the electrical problems that had plagued the final hours of the flight but no fault was found with the performance of the pilot 43 On May 22 New York City gave Cooper a ticker tape parade witnessed by more than four million spectators The parade concluded with a congratulatory luncheon at the Waldorf Astoria attended by 1 900 people where dignitaries such as Vice President Lyndon B Johnson and former president Herbert Hoover made speeches honoring Cooper 44 Project Gemini Edit Main article Gemini 5 Cooper began the tradition of NASA mission insignia with this design for Gemini 5 MA 9 was the last of the Project Mercury flights Walt Williams and others wanted to follow up with a three day Mercury Atlas 10 MA 10 mission but NASA HQ had already announced that there would be no MA 10 if MA 9 was successful 32 Shepard in particular was eager to fly the mission for which he had been designated 45 He even attempted to enlist the support of President Kennedy 46 An official decision that there would be no MA 10 was made by NASA Administrator James E Webb on June 22 1963 43 Had the mission been approved Shepard might not have flown it as he was grounded in October 1963 47 and MA 10 might well have been flown by Cooper who was his backup 45 In January 1964 the press reported that the Democratic Party of Oklahoma discussed running Cooper for the United States Senate 48 Project Mercury was followed by Project Gemini which took its name from the fact that it carried two men instead of just one 49 Slayton designated Cooper as commander of Gemini 5 an eight day 120 orbit mission 47 Cooper s assignment was officially announced on February 8 1965 Pete Conrad one of the nine astronauts selected in 1962 was designated as his co pilot with Neil Armstrong and Elliot See as their respective backups On July 22 Cooper and Conrad went through a rehearsal of a double launch of Gemini atop a Titan II booster from Launch Complex 19 and an Atlas Agena target vehicle from Launch Complex 14 At the end of the successful test the erector could not be raised and the two astronauts had to be retrieved with a cherry picker an escape device that Cooper had devised for Project Mercury and insisted be retained for Gemini 50 Cooper s wife Trudy watches the launch of Gemini 5 with their teenage daughters Cam and Jan Cooper and Conrad wanted to name their spacecraft Lady Bird after Lady Bird Johnson the First Lady of the United States but Webb turned down their request he wanted to depersonalize the space program 51 Cooper and Conrad then came up with the idea of a mission patch similar to the organizational emblems worn by military units The patch was intended to commemorate all the hundreds of people directly involved not just the astronauts 52 Cooper and Conrad chose an embroidered cloth patch sporting the names of the two crew members a Conestoga wagon and the slogan 8 Days or Bust which referred to the expected mission duration 53 Webb ultimately approved the design but insisted on the removal of the slogan from the official version of the patch feeling it placed too much emphasis on the mission length and not the experiments and fearing the public might see the mission as a failure if it did not last the full duration The patch was worn on the right breast of the astronauts uniforms below their nameplates and opposite the NASA emblems worn on the left 53 54 The mission was postponed from August 9 to 19 to give Cooper and Conrad more time to train and was then delayed for two days due to a storm Gemini 5 was launched at 09 00 on August 21 1965 The Titan II booster placed them in a 163 by 349 kilometers 101 by 217 mi orbit Cooper s biggest concern was the fuel cell To make it last eight days Cooper intended to operate it at a low pressure but when it started to dip too low the Flight Controllers advised him to switch on the oxygen heater It eventually stabilized at 49 newtons per square centimetre 71 psi lower than it had ever been operated at before While MA 9 had become uncomfortably warm Gemini 5 became cold There were also problems with the Orbit Attitude and Maneuvering System thrusters which became erratic and two of them failed completely 55 Pete Conrad left and Cooper on deck of recovery carrier USS Lake Champlain after Gemini 5 mission Gemini 5 was originally intended to practice orbital rendezvous with an Agena target vehicle but this had been deferred to a later mission owing to problems with the Agena 56 Nonetheless Cooper practiced bringing his spacecraft to a predetermined location in space This raised confidence for achieving rendezvous with an actual spacecraft on subsequent missions and ultimately in lunar orbit Cooper and Conrad were able to carry out all but one of the scheduled experiments most of which were related to orbital photography 57 The mission was cut short by the appearance of Hurricane Betsy in the planned recovery area Cooper fired the retrorockets on the 120th orbit Splashdown was 130 kilometers 81 mi short of the target A computer error had set the Earth s rotation at 360 degrees per day whereas it is actually 360 98 The difference was significant in a spacecraft The error would have been larger had Cooper not recognized the problem when the reentry gauge indicated that they were too high and attempted to compensate by increasing the bank angle from 53 to 90 degrees to the left to increase the drag Helicopters plucked them from the sea and took them to the recovery ship the aircraft carrier USS Lake Champlain 57 The two astronauts established a new space endurance record by traveling a distance of 3 312 993 miles 5 331 745 km in 190 hours and 56 minutes just short of eight days showing that astronauts could survive in space for the length of time necessary to go from the Earth to the Moon and back Cooper became the first astronaut to make a second orbital flight 58 Cooper served as backup Command Pilot for Gemini 12 the last of the Gemini missions with Gene Cernan as his pilot 59 Project Apollo Edit In November 1964 Cooper entered the 28 000 Salton City 500 miles 800 km boat race with racehorse owner Ogden Phipps and racing car driver Chuck Daigh 60 They were in fourth place when a cracked motor forced them to withdraw The next year Cooper and Grissom had an entry in the race but were disqualified after failing to make a mandatory meeting Cooper competed in the Southwest Championship Drag Boat races at La Porte Texas later in 1965 61 and in the 1967 Orange Bowl Regatta with fire fighter Red Adair 62 In 1968 he entered the 24 Hours of Daytona with Charles Buckley the NASA chief of security at the Kennedy Space Center The night before the race NASA management ordered him to withdraw due to the dangers involved 63 Cooper upset NASA management by quipping to the press that NASA wants astronauts to be tiddlywinks players 63 Apollo 10 backup crew left to right Cooper Edgar Mitchell and Donn Eisele during water egress training in April 1969 Cooper was selected as backup commander for the May 1969 Apollo 10 mission This placed him in line for the position of commander of Apollo 13 according to the usual crew rotation procedure established by Slayton as Director of Flight Crew Operations However when Shepard the Chief of the Astronaut Office returned to flight status in May 1969 Slayton replaced Cooper with Shepard as commander of this crew This mission subsequently became Apollo 14 to give Shepard more time to train 2 64 Loss of this command placed Cooper further down the flight rotation meaning he would not fly until one of the later flights if ever 65 Slayton alleged that Cooper had developed a lax attitude towards training during the Gemini program for the Gemini 5 mission other astronauts had to coax him into the simulator 66 However according to Walter Cunningham Cooper and Scott Carpenter were the only Mercury astronauts who consistently attended geology classes 67 Slayton later asserted that he never intended to rotate Cooper to another mission and assigned him to the Apollo 10 backup crew simply because of a lack of qualified astronauts with command experience at the time Slayton noted that Cooper had a slim chance of receiving the Apollo 13 command if he did an outstanding job as backup commander of Apollo 10 but Slayton felt that Cooper did not 68 Dismayed by his stalled astronaut career Cooper retired from NASA and the USAF on July 31 1970 with the rank of colonel having flown 222 hours in space 2 Soon after he divorced Trudy 69 he married Suzan Taylor a schoolteacher in 1972 69 They had two daughters Colleen Taylor born in 1979 and Elizabeth Jo born in 1980 They remained married until his death in 2004 70 Later life Edit Cooper at an induction ceremony of the U S Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2004 Astronauts John Young and Gene Cernan stand behind him After leaving NASA Cooper served on several corporate boards and as technical consultant for more than a dozen companies in fields ranging from high performance boat design to energy construction and aircraft design 58 Between 1962 and 1967 he was president of Performance Unlimited Inc a manufacturer and distributor of racing and marine engines and fiberglass boats He was president of GCR which designed tested and raced championship cars conducted tire tests for race cars and worked on installation of turbine engines on cars He served on the board of Teletest which designed and installed advanced telemetry systems Doubloon which designed and built treasure hunting equipment and Cosmos which conducted archeological exploration projects 58 As part owner and race project manager of the Profile Race Team from 1968 to 1970 Cooper designed and raced high performance boats Between 1968 and 1974 he served as a technical consultant at Republic Corp and General Motors Ford and Chrysler Motor Companies where he was a consultant on design and construction of various automotive components He was also a technical consultant for Canaveral International Inc for which he developed technical products and served in public relations on its land development projects and served on the board of directors of APECO Campcom LowCom and Crafttech 58 Cooper was president of his own consulting firm Gordon Cooper amp Associates Inc which was involved in technical projects ranging from airline and aerospace fields to land and hotel development 58 From 1973 to 1975 he worked for The Walt Disney Company as the vice president of research and development for Epcot 58 In 1989 he became the chief executive of Galaxy Group Inc a company which designed and improved small airplanes 71 72 UFO sightings EditIn Cooper s autobiography Leap of Faith co authored with Bruce Henderson he recounted his experiences with the Air Force and NASA along with his efforts to expose an alleged UFO conspiracy theory 73 In his review of the book space historian Robert Pearlman wrote While no one can argue with someone s experiences in the case of Cooper s own sightings I found some difficulty understanding how someone so connected with ground breaking technology and science could easily embrace ideas such as extraterrestrial visits with little more than anecdotal evidence 74 Cooper claimed to have seen his first UFO while flying over West Germany in 1951 75 although he denied reports he had seen a UFO during his Mercury flight 76 On May 3 1957 when Cooper was at Edwards he had a crew set up an Askania Cinetheodolite precision landing system on a dry lake bed This cinetheodolite system could take pictures at thirty frames per second as an aircraft landed The crew consisted of James Bittick and Jack Gettys who began work at the site just before 08 00 with both still and motion picture cameras According to Cooper s accounts when they returned later that morning they reported that they had seen a strange looking saucer like aircraft that did not make a sound either on landing or take off 77 Cooper recalled that these men who saw experimental aircraft on a regular basis as part of their job were clearly unnerved They explained how the saucer hovered over them landed 50 yards 46 m away using three extended landing gears and then took off as they approached for a closer look He called a special Pentagon number to call to report such incidents and was instructed to have their film developed but to make no prints of it and send it in to the Pentagon right away in a locked courier pouch 78 As Cooper had not been instructed to not look at the negatives before sending them he did Cooper claimed that the quality of the photography was excellent and what he saw was exactly what Bittick and Gettys had described to him He expected that there would be a follow up investigation since an aircraft of unknown origin had landed at a classified military installation but never heard about the incident again He was never able to track down what happened to those photos and assumed they ended up going to the Air Force s official UFO investigation Project Blue Book which was based at Wright Patterson Air Force Base 78 Cooper claimed until his death that the U S government was indeed covering up information about UFOs He pointed out that there were hundreds of reports made by his fellow pilots many coming from military jet pilots sent to respond to radar or visual sightings 42 In his memoirs Cooper wrote he had seen unexplained aircraft several times during his career and that hundreds of reports had been made 42 In 1978 he testified before the UN on the topic 79 Throughout his later life Cooper repeatedly expressed in interviews that he had seen UFOs and described his recollections for the 2003 documentary Out of the Blue 42 Death Edit 80 Cooper died at age 77 from heart failure at his home in Ventura California on October 4 2004 Cooper was the last American to have flown a solo mission in space until on June 21 2004 Mike Melvill piloted SpaceShipOne to an altitude of 100 1 kilometers 62 2 mi on its first spaceflight 81 70 A portion of Cooper s ashes along with those of Star Trek actor James Doohan and 206 others was launched from New Mexico on April 29 2007 on a sub orbital memorial flight by a privately owned UP Aerospace SpaceLoft XL sounding rocket The capsule carrying the ashes fell back toward Earth as planned it was lost in mountainous landscape The search was obstructed by bad weather but after a few weeks the capsule was found and the ashes it carried were returned to the families 82 83 84 The ashes were then launched on the Explorers orbital mission on August 3 2008 but were lost when the Falcon 1 rocket failed two minutes into the flight 84 85 On May 22 2012 another portion of Cooper s ashes was among those of 308 people included on the SpaceX COTS Demo Flight 2 that was bound for the International Space Station 84 This flight using the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and the Dragon capsule was uncrewed The second stage and the burial canister remained in the initial orbit that the Dragon C2 was inserted into and burned up in the Earth s atmosphere a month later 86 Awards and honors Edit Cooper at a parade given in his honor Cooper received many awards including the Legion of Merit the Distinguished Flying Cross with oak leaf cluster the NASA Exceptional Service Medal the NASA Distinguished Service Medal the Collier Trophy 87 the Harmon Trophy the DeMolay Legion of Honor the John F Kennedy Trophy 58 the Iven C Kincheloe Award 88 the Air Force Association Trophy the John J Montgomery Award the General Thomas D White Trophy 89 the University of Hawaii Regents Medal the Columbus Medal and the Silver Antelope Award 58 He received an honorary D Sc from Oklahoma State University in 1967 58 He was one of five Oklahoman astronauts inducted into the Oklahoma Aviation and Space Hall of Fame in 1980 90 He was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1981 71 91 and the U S Astronaut Hall of Fame on May 11 1990 92 93 Cooper was a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics the American Astronautical Society Scottish Rite and York Rite Masons Shriners the Royal Order of Jesters the Rotary Club Order of Daedalians Confederate Air Force Adventurers Club of Los Angeles and Boy Scouts of America 58 He was a Master Mason member of Carbondale Lodge 82 in Carbondale Colorado and was given the honorary 33rd Degree by the Scottish Rite Masonic body 94 Cultural influence EditCooper s Mercury astronaut career and appealing personality were depicted in the 1983 film The Right Stuff in which he was portrayed by Dennis Quaid Cooper worked closely with the production company and every line uttered by Quaid was reportedly attributable to Cooper s recollection Quaid met with Cooper before the casting call and learned his mannerisms Quaid had his hair cut and dyed to match Cooper s appearance in the 1950s and 1960s 95 Cooper was later portrayed by Robert C Treveiler in the 1998 HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon and by Bret Harrison in the 2015 ABC TV series The Astronaut Wives Club That year he was also portrayed by Colin Hanks in the Season 3 episode Oklahoma of Drunk History written by Laura Steinel which retold the story of his Mercury Atlas 9 flight 95 While he was in space Cooper recorded dark spots he noticed in the waters of the Caribbean He believed these anomalies may be the locations of shipwrecks The 2017 Discovery Channel docu series Cooper s Treasure followed by Darrell Miklos as he searched through Cooper s files to discover the location of the suspected shipwrecks 96 97 Cooper appeared as himself in an episode of the television series CHiPs and during the early 1980s made regular call in appearances on chat shows hosted by David Letterman Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas The Thunderbirds character Gordon Tracy was named after him He was also a major contributor to the book In the Shadow of the Moon published after his death which offered his final published thoughts on his life and career 98 In 2019 National Geographic began filming a television series based on Tom Wolfe s 1979 book The Right Stuff Colin O Donoghue is portraying Gordon Cooper While the series was set to air in spring of 2020 99 the first two episodes aired on October 9 2020 on subscription service Disney The 2019 series For All Mankind has Gordon Gordo Stevens a character based in part on him Notes Edit Burgess 2011 p 336 a b c d e f g h Gray Tara L Gordon Cooper Jr 40th Anniversary of Mercury 7 NASA Retrieved July 10 2015 Cooper amp Henderson 2000 pp 93 94 a b c d e f g Burgess 2011 p 337 a b c Cooper amp Henderson 2000 p 102 Scouting and Space Exploration Boy Scouts of America Archived from the original on March 4 2016 Retrieved January 2 2018 Cooper amp Henderson 2000 pp 94 95 a b c Cooper amp Henderson 2000 pp 102 103 Leroy Gordon Cooper Jr Veteran Tributes Retrieved December 30 2018 a b c d Burgess 2016 p 13 Burgess 2016 p 14 Cooper amp Henderson 2000 pp 7 10 Cooper amp Henderson 2000 pp 12 15 Slayton amp Cassutt 1994 p 73 Burgess 2016 pp 23 24 Burgess 2011 pp 274 275 Atkinson amp Shafritz 1985 pp 42 47 Cooper amp Henderson 2000 pp 22 23 Burgess 2016 p 34 Cooper et al 2010 pp 83 85 Cooper amp Henderson 2000 pp 24 25 Wolfe 1979 pp 152 153 Burgess 2016 p 36 a b Thompson 2004 p 336 Cooper amp Henderson 2000 pp 28 30 Burgess 2016 p 47 Slayton amp Cassutt 1994 pp 121 122 Slayton amp Cassutt 1994 p 122 Swenson Grimwood amp Alexander 1966 pp 486 487 a b Swenson Grimwood amp Alexander 1966 pp 489 490 Slayton amp Cassutt 1994 p 127 a b Swenson Grimwood amp Alexander 1966 p 492 a b c Cooper amp Henderson 2000 pp 37 39 Slayton amp Cassutt 1994 p 129 a b Swenson Grimwood amp Alexander 1966 p 489 Swenson Grimwood amp Alexander 1966 p 497 Swenson Grimwood amp Alexander 1966 p 496 Cooper amp Henderson 2000 pp 52 53 Wolfe 1979 p 78 Cooper amp Henderson 2000 p 57 Cooper amp Henderson 2000 pp 56 57 a b c d David Leonard July 30 2000 Gordon Cooper Touts New Book Leap of Faith Space com Archived from the original on July 27 2010 Retrieved January 20 2008 a b Swenson Grimwood amp Alexander 1966 p 501 Hailey Foster May 23 1963 City Roars Big Well Done to Cooper The New York Times pp 1 26 a b Burgess 2016 pp 204 206 Thompson 2004 pp 343 345 a b Slayton amp Cassutt 1994 pp 136 139 From Orbiting The Earth To The Arena of Politics St Petersburg Times January 18 1964 Retrieved July 28 2009 via The New York Times Hacker amp Grimwood 1977 pp 3 5 Hacker amp Grimwood 1977 p 255 Cooper amp Henderson 2000 p 113 Cooper amp Henderson 2000 p 115 a b 8 Days or Bust 50 years Gemini 5 made history with first crew mission patch collectSPACE August 24 2015 Retrieved January 2 2018 French amp Burgess 2007 p 44 Hacker amp Grimwood 1977 pp 256 259 Hacker amp Grimwood 1977 pp 239 266 a b Hacker amp Grimwood 1977 pp 259 262 a b c d e f g h i j Gordon Cooper NASA Biography NASA JSC October 2004 Archived from the original on December 24 2018 Retrieved May 7 2017 Burgess 2016 p 231 Astronaut Goes to Sea Desert Sun Vol 38 no 78 November 3 1964 Retrieved January 21 2019 Burgess 2016 p 233 1967 Orange Bowl Regatta The Vintage Hydroplanes Retrieved January 21 2019 a b Cooper amp Henderson 2000 p 178 Shayler 2002 p 281 Cooper amp Henderson 2000 pp 176 182 Chaikin 2007 p 247 Cunningham 2009 pp 42 43 Slayton amp Cassutt 1994 p 236 a b Cooper amp Henderson 2000 p 202 a b Wald Matthew L October 5 2004 Gordon Cooper Astronaut Is Dead at 77 The New York Times Retrieved July 10 2015 a b Leroy G Cooper Jr Flew the last Mercury mission longest of program New Mexico Museum of Space History Retrieved January 2 2019 The Space Review Loss of faith Gordon Cooper s post NASA stories The Space Review Retrieved February 2 2019 Burgess 2016 pp 341 342 Faith regained Gordon Cooper interview collectSPACE Retrieved January 8 2019 Cooper amp Henderson 2000 p 81 Martin Robert Scott September 10 1999 Gordon Cooper No Mercury UFO Space com Purch Archived from the original on January 23 2010 Retrieved January 20 2008 Cooper amp Henderson 2000 pp 82 83 a b Cooper amp Henderson 2000 pp 83 86 Bond Peter November 18 2004 Col Gordon Cooper Independent London Retrieved October 3 2010 Schwindt Oriana April 18 2017 This astronaut found sunken treasure from space and kept it secret until his deathbed VICE News Retrieved February 2 2019 Torgan Andrew October 2 2014 Making History with SpaceShipOne Pilot Brian Binnie Recalls Historic Flight Space com Retrieved November 28 2019 Ashes of Star Trek s Scotty found after space ride Reuters May 18 2007 Retrieved January 20 2008 Sherriff Lucy May 22 2007 Scotty ashes located and heading home The Register Retrieved January 20 2008 a b c Pioneering astronaut s ashes ride into orbit with trailblazing private spacecraft collectSPACE May 22 2012 Retrieved January 2 2019 Bergin Chris August 2 2008 SpaceX Falcon I fails during first stage flight NASASpaceflight com Retrieved January 2 2019 FALCON 9 R B Satellite Information Heavens Above Retrieved January 2 2019 Astronauts Have Their Day at the White House Chicago Tribune Chicago Illinois October 11 1963 p 3 via Newspapers com Wolfe Tom October 25 1979 Cooper the Cool jockeys Faith 7 between naps Chicago Tribune p 22 via Newspapers com Cooper Gets White Trophy For U S Air Achievement The New York Times September 22 1964 p 21 State Aviation Hall of Fame Inducts 9 The Daily Oklahoman Oklahoma City Oklahoma December 19 1980 p 2S via Newspapers com Harbert Nancy September 27 1981 Hall to Induct Seven Space Pioneers Albuquerque Journal Albuquerque New Mexico p 53 via Newspapers com L Gordon Cooper Jr Astronaut Scholarship Foundation Retrieved January 2 2019 Mercury Astronauts Dedicate Hall of Fame at Florida Site Victoria Advocate Victoria Texas Associated Press May 12 1990 p 38 via Newspapers com Masonic Astronauts Freemason Information March 2015 Retrieved January 8 2019 a b Burgess 2016 pp 273 274 About Cooper s Treasure Discovery Retrieved April 29 2017 Bradley Laura April 17 2017 How a NASA Astronaut s Treasure Map Could Make History Vanity Fair Retrieved February 2 2019 Burgess 2016 p 230 The Right Stuff Colin O Donoghue To Star In Nat Geo Series In Recasting Deadline Retrieved July 26 2020 References EditAtkinson Joseph D Shafritz Jay M 1985 The Real Stuff A History of NASA s Astronaut Recruitment Program Praeger special studies New York Praeger ISBN 978 0 03 005187 6 OCLC 12052375 Burgess Colin 2011 Selecting the Mercury Seven The Search for America s First Astronauts Springer Praxis books in space exploration New York London Springer ISBN 978 1 4419 8405 0 OCLC 747105631 Burgess Colin 2016 Faith 7 L Gordon Cooper Jr and the Final Mercury Mission Springer Praxis books in space exploration New York London Springer ISBN 978 3 319 30562 2 OCLC 1026785988 Carpenter M Scott Cooper L Gordon Jr Glenn John H Jr Grissom Virgil I Schirra Walter M Jr Shepard Alan B Jr Slayton Donald K 2010 Originally published 1962 We Seven By the Astronauts Themselves New York Simon amp Schuster Paperbacks ISBN 978 1 4391 8103 4 LCCN 62019074 OCLC 429024791 Chaikin Andrew 2007 A Man on the Moon The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts London Penguin Books ISBN 978 0 14 311235 8 OCLC 958200469 Cooper Gordon Henderson Bruce 2000 Leap of Faith New York HarperCollins ISBN 0 06 019416 2 OCLC 59538671 Cunningham Walter 2009 1977 The All American Boys New York ipicturebooks ISBN 978 1 87696 324 8 OCLC 1062319644 French Francis Burgess Colin 2007 In the Shadow of the Moon Lincoln Nebraska University of Nebraska Press ISBN 978 0 8032 1128 5 Hacker Barton C Grimwood James M 1977 On the Shoulders of Titans A History of Project Gemini PDF Washington D C National Aeronautics and Space Administration SP 4203 Retrieved March 15 2017 Shayler David 2002 Apollo The Lost and Forgotten Missions London Springer ISBN 1 85233 575 0 OCLC 319972640 Slayton Donald K Deke Cassutt Michael 1994 Deke U S Manned Space From Mercury to the Shuttle 1st ed New York Forge ISBN 0 312 85503 6 Swenson Loyd S Jr Grimwood James M Alexander Charles C 1966 This New Ocean A History of Project Mercury The NASA History Series Washington DC National Aeronautics and Space Administration OCLC 569889 NASA SP 4201 Retrieved June 28 2007 Thompson Neal 2004 Light This Candle The Life amp Times of Alan Shepard America s First Spaceman 1st ed New York Crown Publishers ISBN 0 609 61001 5 LCCN 2003015688 OCLC 52631310 Wolfe Tom 1979 The Right Stuff New York Farrar Straus and Giroux ISBN 978 0 553 27556 8 OCLC 849889526 This article incorporates public domain material from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gordon Cooper Why Did Gordo Tell UFO Stories Remembering Gordo NASA memories of Gordon Cooper LEROY GORDON COOPER JR COLONEL USAF RET NASA ASTRONAUT DECEASED PDF NASA October 2004 Retrieved January 15 2021 Portals Biography Spaceflight Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Gordon Cooper amp oldid 1133832661, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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