Gordon Cooper

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{{Infobox Astronaut | name =Leroy Gordon "Gordo" Cooper, Jr. | image =GordonCooperHelmetNasa.jpg | USA =USA | nationality =American | date_birth =March 6, 1927 | date_death =October 4, 2004 | place_birth =Shawnee, Oklahoma | place_death =Ventura, California | occupation =Test Pilot | rank =Colonel, USAF | selection =1959 NASA Group | time =222h | mission =Mercury 9, Gemini 5 | insignia =Image:Faith 7 insignia.jpg Image:Gemini5insignia.jpg |}}

Leroy Gordon "Gordo" Cooper, Jr. (March 6, 1927 – October 4, 2004), was an American astronaut. He was one of the original Mercury 7 pilots in the Mercury program, the first manned-space effort by the United States.

Life and career

Cooper was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma. He grew up there and in Murray, Kentucky, where he attended public schools. In 1956, Cooper received a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology.

In 1950, when Gordon was 23 yrs old and a second lieutenant, he was station with the 525th Fighter Bomber Squadron at Neubiberg Air Force Base in West Germany. He flew patrols along the borders of East Germany. Anytime an alert was sounded indicating enemy aircraft (Soviet MIG's) were in the area, and his squadron would respond by flying up to investigate. In 1951 he claims to have seen his first UFO. They went to 45,000 ft in their F-86 Sabre fighters, yet the objects were still well above them. He related his account on Art Bell's radio program Coast to Coast, stating the object were shaped "like saucers -- they were metallic looking, but we couldn't really get close enough to see more than that. You couldn't see any wings on them" and did not look like MIG's or balloons. This had happened several days in a row where he saw them in various size groups (4-16). They would outmaneuver his squadron quite easily with drastically varying speeds, even dead stops. He's not sure if any reports were filed by senior officiers or if it was ever investigated. After a while they stopped going up after them since there wasn't much they could do anyway. [1]

In 1957, when Gordon was 30 and a captain, he was assigned to Fighter Section of the Experimental Flight Test Engineering Division at Edwards Air Force Base in California. He acted as a test pilot and project manager. On May 3 of that year, he had a crew setting up an Askania-camera precision landing system on a dry lake bed. This camera system would take pictures at one frame per second as an aircraft landed. The crew consisted of James Bittick And Jack Gettys who began work at the site just before 8AM, using both still and motion picture cameras. Later that morning they returned to report to Gordon that they saw a "strange-looking saucer" like aircraft that did not make a sound either on landing or take off. Gordon realized that these men, who on a regular basis have seen experimental aircraft flying and landing around them as part of their job of filming those aircraft, were clearly worked up and unnerved. They explaind how the saucer hovered over them, landed 50 yards away from them using three extended landing gears and then took off as they approached for a closer look. Being photographers with camera's in hand, they of course shot images with 35mm and 4-by-5 still cameras as well as motion film. There was a special Pentagon number to call to report incidents like this. He called and it immediately went up the chain of command until he was instructed by a general to have the film developed (but to make no prints of it) and send it right away in a locked courier pouch. As he was NOT instructed to NOT look at the negatives before sending them, he did. He said the quality of the photography was excellent as would be expected from the experienced photographers who took them. What he saw was exactly what they had described to him. He did not see the movie film before everything was sent away. He expected that there would be a follow up investigation since an aircraft of unknown origin had landed in a highly classified military installation, but nothing was ever said of the incident again. He was never able to track down what happened to those photos. He assumed that they ended up going to the air force's official UFO investigation, Project Blue Book, which was based at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

He claims that the government is indeed covering up information about UFOs. He gives the example of President Harry Truman who said on April 4, 1950, "I can assure you that flying saucers, given that they exist, are not constructed by any power on Earth." He also 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 from the ground. He was quite convinced till the day he died that he had seen UFOs and was a stong advocate to make the government come clean with what it knew. [2]

Astronaut

Cooper served as a test pilot in the U.S. Air Force before being selected as a Mercury astronaut in April 1959. He was launched into space on May 15, 1963 aboard the Mercury-Atlas 9–Faith 7 spacecraft. Cooper's was the last Mercury mission. He orbited the Earth 22 times and logged more time in space than all five previous Mercury astronauts combined. His mission lasted 34 hours, 19 minutes and 49 seconds, during which he completed 22 orbits and traveled 546,167 miles (878,971 km) at 17,547 mph (28,239 km/h), pulling a maximum of 7.6 g (75 m/s²). Cooper achieved an altitude of 165.9 statute miles (267 km) at apogee. He also gained the distinction of becoming the first American astronaut to sleep not only in orbit but on the launch pad during a countdown.

Two years later, on August 21, 1965, Cooper flew in the Gemini program as the commander of Gemini 5 on an eight-day mission with Charles Conrad. Cooper was the first person to make a second orbital flight. He was tentatively scheduled to fly in the Apollo program (he was backup commander of Apollo 10) but was scratched after a falling-out with NASA management - Alan Shepard was chosen over him to be commander of Apollo 13 (Shepard's crew was later moved onto Apollo 14). He retired from NASA and the Air Force on July 31, 1970 with the rank of colonel.

Later life and death

Gordon also worked with the Imagineering program at Disney and was involved with the Advanced Technology Group for a number of years, where he had a number of interesting experiences which only backed up his belief in intelligent life from another planet.

For an early astronaut and engineer, Cooper had an atypical fascination with the pseudosciences, along with fellow astronaut Edgar Mitchell.

He was the recipient of an honorary Doctorate of Science degree from Oklahoma City University in 1967.

On December 2, 2005, Space Services announced that Cooper's ashes would be included on a memorial launch using a Falcon 1 rocket during the first quarter of 2006. This flight has been delayed following a launch failure.

Books by Cooper

Cooper wrote one book, Leap of Faith (ISBN 0060194162), which chronicled his experiences with the Air Force and NASA as well as his efforts to expose an alleged UFO conspiracy.

Media depictions

The story of the Mercury astronauts is portrayed in the film The Right Stuff (1983), in which Cooper was played by Dennis Quaid. In the 1998 miniseries From the Earth to the Moon Cooper was played by Robert C. Treveiler. Cooper is also the last American astronaut to orbit the Earth for an entire mission by himself. However, he wasn't the last U.S. astronaut to reach space alone: two flights of the X-15 passed the 100 km "edge of space" later in 1963, and SpaceShipOne made three flights past that barrier

External links

• Space.com article "Pioneering Astronaut Sees UFO Cover-up"
• More articles about Cooper focused on UFOs
• Find-A-Grave profile for Gordon Cooper
• NASA biography
• Spacefacts biography of Gordon Cooper

• [3]"Colonel L. Gordon Cooper, Mercury-9, Gemini-5 Astronaut, Addressing a United Nations Panel Discussion on UFOs and ETs in New York in 1985."de:Gordon Cooper

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