Gordon Cooper
Gordon Cooper | |
---|---|
NASA astronaut | |
Rank | Colonel, USAF |
Time in space | 9d 9h 14m |
Selection | NASA Group 1 (1959) |
Missions | Mercury-Atlas 9 Gemini 5 |
Mission insignia | |
Retirement | July 31, 1970 |
Leroy Gordon Cooper Jr. (March 6, 1927 – October 4, 2004) was an American
In 1963 Cooper piloted the longest and last Mercury spaceflight,
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 After serving as backup commander of the Apollo 10 mission, he was superseded by Alan Shepard. He 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
Cooper attended Jefferson Elementary School and Shawnee High School,
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
Military service
At college, Cooper was active in the
On completion of his flight training in 1950, Cooper was posted to
While at AFIT, Cooper met
Cooper and Grissom attended the
NASA career
Project Mercury
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,
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
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 $1,516 in 2023). 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
After
Cooper served as
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.
After an argument with NASA Deputy Administrator
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]
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
Faith 7
On May 22, New York City gave Cooper a
Project Gemini
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
Project Mercury was followed by
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]
Gemini 5 was originally intended to practice
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]
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
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
Cooper claimed to have seen his first
Cooper recalled that these men, who saw
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
Cooper died at age 77 from heart failure at his home in Ventura, California, on October 4, 2004.[80]
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.[81][82][83] 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.[83][84]
On May 22, 2012, another portion of Cooper's ashes was among those of 308 people included on the
Awards and honors
Cooper received many awards, including the
He was one of five Oklahoman astronauts inducted into the
Cooper was a member of the
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.[94]
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.[94]
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.[95][96]
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.[97]
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,[98] 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
- ^ 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 & Henderson 2000, pp. 93–94.
- ^ a b c d e f g Burgess 2011, p. 337.
- ^ a b c Cooper & 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 & Henderson 2000, pp. 94–95.
- ^ a b c Cooper & 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 & Henderson 2000, pp. 7–10.
- ^ Cooper & Henderson 2000, pp. 12–15.
- ^ Slayton & Cassutt 1994, p. 73.
- ^ Burgess 2016, pp. 23–24.
- ^ Burgess 2011, pp. 274–275.
- ^ Atkinson & Shafritz 1985, pp. 42–47.
- ^ Cooper & Henderson 2000, pp. 22–23.
- ^ Burgess 2016, p. 34.
- ^ Cooper et al. 2010, pp. 83–85.
- ^ Cooper & Henderson 2000, pp. 24–25.
- ^ Wolfe 1979, pp. 152–153.
- ^ Burgess 2016, p. 36.
- ^ a b Thompson 2004, p. 336.
- ^ Cooper & Henderson 2000, pp. 28–30.
- ^ Burgess 2016, p. 47.
- ^ Slayton & Cassutt 1994, pp. 121–122.
- ^ Slayton & Cassutt 1994, p. 122.
- ^ Swenson, Grimwood & Alexander 1966, pp. 486–487.
- ^ a b Swenson, Grimwood & Alexander 1966, pp. 489–490.
- ^ Slayton & Cassutt 1994, p. 127.
- ^ a b Swenson, Grimwood & Alexander 1966, p. 492.
- ^ a b c Cooper & Henderson 2000, pp. 37–39.
- ^ Slayton & Cassutt 1994, p. 129.
- ^ a b Swenson, Grimwood & Alexander 1966, p. 489.
- ^ Swenson, Grimwood & Alexander 1966, p. 497.
- ^ Swenson, Grimwood & Alexander 1966, p. 496.
- ^ Cooper & Henderson 2000, pp. 52–53.
- ^ Wolfe 1979, p. 78.
- ^ Cooper & Henderson 2000, p. 57.
- ^ Cooper & 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 & 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 & Cassutt 1994, pp. 136–139.
- ^ "From Orbiting The Earth To The Arena of Politics". St. Petersburg Times. January 18, 1964. Retrieved March 19, 2023 – via The New York Times.
- ^ Hacker & Grimwood 1977, pp. 3–5.
- ^ Hacker & Grimwood 1977, p. 255.
- ^ Cooper & Henderson 2000, p. 113.
- ^ Cooper & 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 & Burgess 2007, p. 44.
- ^ Hacker & Grimwood 1977, pp. 256–259.
- ^ Hacker & Grimwood 1977, pp. 239, 266.
- ^ a b Hacker & 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 & Henderson 2000, p. 178.
- ^ Shayler 2002, p. 281.
- ^ Cooper & Henderson 2000, pp. 176–182.
- ^ Chaikin 2007, p. 247.
- ^ Cunningham 2009, pp. 42–43.
- ^ Slayton & Cassutt 1994, p. 236.
- ^ a b Cooper & Henderson 2000, p. 202.
- ^ 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 & 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 & Henderson 2000, pp. 82–83.
- ^ a b Cooper & Henderson 2000, pp. 83–86.
- ^ Bond, Peter (November 18, 2004). "Col Gordon Cooper". Independent. London. Retrieved October 3, 2010.
- ^ Wald, Matthew L. (October 5, 2004). "Gordon Cooper, Astronaut, Is Dead at 77". The New York Times. Retrieved March 9, 2004.
- ^ "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
- Atkinson, Joseph D.; Shafritz, Jay M. (1985). The Real Stuff: A History of NASA's Astronaut Recruitment Program. Praeger special studies. New York: Praeger. OCLC 12052375.
- OCLC 747105631.
- OCLC 1026785988.
- OCLC 429024791.
- OCLC 958200469.
- Cooper, Gordon; OCLC 59538671.
- OCLC 1062319644.
- 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. OCLC 319972640.
- 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. Archived from the originalon June 17, 2010. Retrieved June 28, 2007.
- OCLC 52631310.
- OCLC 849889526.
- This article incorporates public domain material from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
External links
- 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.