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.
Read more about Gordon Cooper: UFO Sightings, Memorial Spaceflights, Awards and Decorations, Cultural Influence
Famous quotes containing the words gordon and/or cooper:
“The greenest island of my imagination.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“The American doctrinaire is the converse of the American demagogue, and, in this way, is scarcely less injurious to the public. The first deals in poetry, the last in cant. He is as much a visionary on one side, as the extreme theoretical democrat is a visionary on the other.”
—James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851)