Posted on 10/04/2004 3:59:59 PM PDT by good_fight
Gordon Cooper, one of the nation's first astronauts on the Mercury and Gemini missions, has died, NASA confirms.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
"From the Earth to the Moon" Is awesome.
Dennis Quaid did an outstanding job as Gordo in "The Right Stuff".
He was the best thing about the film.
Rest in peace, Mr. Cooper.
Who was the best pilot I ever saw? Well.....you're looking at him! To infinity and beyond, Gordo!
I can remember days when we played as kids that we all knew the names of the original 7 and every thing about them.
As I sit here looking at a letter that Neil Armstrong wrote to me when I made Eagle Scout I am reminded that they were all heros and will always be heros to me. It hurts to lose such talent but then this man earned his wings and now gets to really use em !
God Bless such men as Col Gordy Cooper.....
Give my Fraternal Regards to my late Father.
Sad RIP bump
There are SO FEW OF US who have "Touched the Face of God,"--or EVEN KNOW "What That MEANS!!"
I Mourn the "Passing of" EACH of our "Heroes" who Risked Their Lives to GO To The Moon!!
WHATEVER "Adventures" reported by Any of us; There can Be NO Comparison With the "Adventure Of" our "Trip to the Moon!!"
DESPITE Reprehensible "Propaganda," There is NO TRUTH other than the BASIC VERACITY--That Americans Landed On The Moon, Explored a Portion of it, & Returned with a Number of "Samples" of It's Surface.
Citizens who Reject the WELL Documented Information Retrieved--at GREAT Personal Danger--are Rejecting Physical Evidence; The SAD "Denizens of" our Great outGreat
...He added, "For many years I have lived with a secret, in a secrecy imposed
on all specialists and astronauts. I can now reveal that every day, in the
USA, our radar instruments capture objects of form and composition unknown...
to us."
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/10/04/gordon.cooper/index.html
What a great time to be alive and be an American.
Go "Hot Dog". Go. On to the next mission. R.I.P.
AP on YaHoo
Gordon Cooper, NASA Mercury Pioneer, Dies
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041005/ap_on_re_us/obit_cooper_6
LOS ANGELES - Gordon Cooper, who was the youngest and perhaps cockiest member of the original Mercury astronauts and set the space endurance record that helped clear the way for the first moon landing, has died. He was 77.
Cooper died Monday at his home in Ventura, NASA (news - web sites) officials said in a statement. He died of natural causes, said Mitch Breese, of the county medical examiner's office.
"As one of the original seven Mercury astronauts, Gordon Cooper was one of the faces of America's fledgling space program," said NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe. "He truly portrayed the right stuff, and he helped gain the backing and enthusiasm of the American public, so critical for the spirit of exploration."
As one of the nation's first astronauts, Cooper became a hero to a generation of Americans in the early 1960s as the country tried to catch the Soviet Union in the space race.
On May 15, 1963, Cooper piloted Faith 7, the Mercury program's last flight, circling the globe 22 times in 34 hours and 20 minutes. The mission made him the last astronaut to orbit Earth alone and the first to take a nap during the journey.
Cooper became the first man to make a second orbital flight two years later during the Gemini 5 mission, when he and Charles Conrad established a space endurance record by traveling more than 3.3 million miles in 190 hours, 56 minutes.
The flight proved humans could survive in a weightless state for the length of a trip to the moon and tested a new power source for future flights — fuel cells. It also let the United States take the lead in the space race by surpassing the Soviet Union in man-hours in orbit.
Cooper's rambunctious attitude was immortalized in Tom Wolfe's book "The Right Stuff" and the 1983 movie of the same name.
Cooper gave his signature line during a 1995 reunion of surviving Mercury astronauts. When asked who was the greatest fighter pilot he ever saw, Cooper enthusiastically answered, "You're looking at him!"
"Gordon Cooper's legacy is permanently woven into the fabric of the Kennedy Space Center (news - web sites) as a Mercury Seven astronaut," said center director Jim Kennedy. "His achievements helped build the foundation of success for human space flight that NASA and KSC have benefited from for the past four decades."
The death of Cooper came the day that privately built SpaceShipOne broke through the Earth's atmosphere for the second time in five days, capturing a $10 million prize aimed at opening the final frontier to tourists.
Three of the original Mercury astronauts are still alive — John Glenn, Scott Carpenter and Wally Schirra.
Virgil "Gus" Grissom died in the 1967 Apollo 1 fire; Donald K. "Deke" Slayton died of brain cancer in 1993; and Alan Shepard Jr., died of leukemia in 1998.
Cooper, born March 6, 1927, in Shawnee, Okla., joined the Marines during World War II and transferred to the Air Force in 1949. He earned a bachelor of science degree in aeronautical engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology in 1956.
He then flew numerous flights as a test pilot in the Flight Test Division at Edwards Air Force Base near Los Angeles. Cooper was selected as a Mercury astronaut in April 1959.
Gordon is survived by his wife, Suzan, and their children. Funeral details were not immediately available.
Agreed - it was a gem of a scene, in an equally impressive film. I'll take it a step futher: Quaid will never top that role. That's what awes me every time I watch that film, or read or view *anything* on the Mercury, Gemini or Apollo programs. Those men seemed larger than life back then - and time has not eroded that stature.
I'm reminded of another line from The Right Stuff:
(Cooper to Pancho Barnes):
Rookies? Now hold on, sis. You are looking at a whole new ballgame here now. In fact, in a couple of years, I bet you're even gonna immortalize us by putting our pictures up there on your wall.
Way to go, Hot Dog.
"Way to go, Hot Dog."
Cooper got the lead story on the ABC Radio news...then today's flight was reported.
Sometimes the major networks screw up and get things right!!!
Gordon Cooper, the last American to go into space, alone.
You must mean Chuck Yeager - the first person to break the sound barrier!
Don't feel bad for Steve Yeager, though, he may not have been an astronaut - but he did win the World Series in 1981!
fell a sleep before liftoff too
RIP
God's speed Gordo, see you on the other side.
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