Gordon Cooper

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Gordon Cooper bigraphy, stories - Astronauts

Gordon Cooper : biography

March 6, 1927 – 04 October 2004

Leroy Gordon Cooper, Jr. (March 6, 1927 – October 4, 2004), also known as Gordon Cooper, was an American aeronautical engineer, test pilot and one of the seven original astronauts in Project Mercury, the first manned space program of the United States.

Cooper piloted the longest and final Mercury spaceflight in 1963. He was the first American to sleep in space during that 34-hour mission and was the last American to be launched alone to conduct an entirely solo orbital mission. In 1965, Cooper flew as command pilot of Gemini 5.

Memorial spaceflights

On April 29, 2007, Cooper’s ashes (along with those of Star Trek actor James Doohan and 206 others) were launched from New Mexico on a sub-orbital memorial flight by a privately owned UP Aerospace SpaceLoft XL sounding rocket. Although the capsule carrying the ashes fell back toward Earth as planned, it was lost in mountainous landscape. The search was thwarted by bad weather but after a few weeks the capsule was found and the ashes it carried were returned to the families.uk.reuters.com, , 18 May 2007, retrieved 20 January 2008Sherriff, Lucy, , 22 May 2007, retrieved 20 January 2008 The ashes were then launched on the Explorers orbital mission (August 3, 2008) but were lost when the Falcon 1 rocket failed two minutes into the flight.

On May 22, 2012, Cooper’s ashes were among those of 308 people included on the SpaceX flight that was bound for the International Space Station. This flight, using the "Falcon" launch vehicle and the "Dragon" capsule, was unmanned.

Biography

Early years

Cooper was born and raised in Shawnee, Oklahoma. He attended Shawnee High School and participated in football & track. During his senior year his father, Leroy G. Cooper, was called back into military service and the family moved to Murray, Kentucky, where he graduated from high school. He was active in the Boy Scouts of America and achieved the second highest rank of Life Scout. In 1945 Cooper turned down the possibility of a football scholarship to enlist in the United States Marine Corps, but was too late to see combat in the Second World War. After completing three years of coursework at the University of Ohio he received a United States Army commission. Cooper met his first wife Trudy while in Hawaii, and they married in 1947.

Cooper’s grandparents were Philip Cooper, and his wife, Cora Sterns, co-owners of the first general store in Maud, Oklahoma. Philip Cooper’s sister-in-law, Maud Sterns, for whom the town was named, was Cora’s sister. Stacy, Donna. Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. "Maud." Retrieved May 22, 2012.

Military career

Cooper transferred his commission to the United States Air Force in 1949, was placed on active duty and received flight training at Perrin Air Force Base, Texas and Williams AFB, Arizona.

Cooper’s first flight assignment came in 1950 at Landstuhl Air Base, West Germany, where he flew F-84 Thunderjets and F-86 Sabres for four years. While in Germany he also attended the European Extension of the University of Maryland. Returning to the United States, he studied for two years at the Air Force Institute of Technology in Ohio and in 1957 completed his bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering. Cooper was then assigned to the Experimental Flight Test School at Edwards Air Force Base in California, and after graduation 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.Gray, Tara, , history.nasa.gov, retrieved 20 January 2008 Cooper logged more than 7,000 hours of flight time, with 4,000 hours in jet aircraft. He flew all types of commercial and general aviation airplanes and helicopters.

NASA career

Mercury program

While at Edwards, Cooper was intrigued to read an announcement saying that a contract had been awarded to McDonnell Aircraft in St. Louis, Missouri, to build a space capsule. Shortly after this he was called to Washington, D.C., for a NASA briefing on Project Mercury and the part astronauts would play in it. Cooper went through the selection process with the other 109 pilots and was not surprised when he was accepted as the youngest of the first seven American astronauts.