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

Cooper was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma|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.

While stationed in Germany in the early 1950's,
Cooper claims to have seen several Unidentified
flying objects. He related his account on Art
Bell's radio program, 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." Cooper initially suspected the objects
were Soviet Union|Russian, but later speculated
they could be "some kind of extraterrestrial
vehicle."
http://www.space.com/sciencefiction/phenomena/coop
er.html

Cooper served as a test pilot in the United States
Air Force|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
9|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
Gee|g (75 m/s²). Cooper achieved an altitude
of 165.9 statute miles (267 km) at Apsis|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.

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.

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 unidentified flying object|UFO
conspiracy theory|conspiracy.

The story of the Mercury astronauts is portrayed
in the film http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086197/
The Right Stuff (1983), in which Cooper was played
by Dennis Quaid. 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 North American X-15|X-15 later
in 1963 passed the 100 km "edge of space".  Also,
SpaceShipOne, largely funded by Microsoft
billionaire Paul Allen made three flights past
that barrier.  The third flight by that craft, in
which it won the Ansari X Prize, occurred on
October 4, 2004—the same day that Cooper
died at age 77 in Ventura, California|Ventura,
California.


==External links==
*http://www.space.com/news/spaceagencies/gordon_uf
os_000728.html Space.com article "Pioneering
Astronaut Sees UFO Cover-up"
*http://www.ufoevidence.org/feature/gordoncooper.h
tm More articles about Cooper focused on UFOs