Leroy Gordon Cooper Jr. (March 6, 1927 – October 4, 2004) was an American aerospace engineer, test pilot, United States Air Force pilot, and the youngest of the seven original astronauts in Project Mercury, the first human space program of the United States. Cooper learned to fly as a child, and after service in the United States Marine Corps during World War II, he was commissioned into the United States Air Force in 1949. After serving as a fighter pilot, he qualified as a test pilot in 1956 and was selected as an astronaut in 1959.
In 1963, Cooper piloted the longest and last Mercury spaceflight, Mercury-Atlas 9. During that 34-hour mission, he became the first American to spend an entire day in space, the first to sleep in space, and the last American launched on an entirely solo orbital mission. Despite a series of severe equipment failures, he completed the mission under manual control, guiding his spacecraft, which he named Faith 7, to a splashdown just ahead of the recovery ship. Cooper became the first person to make a second orbital flight when he flew as command pilot of Gemini 5 in 1965. Along with pilot Pete Conrad, he set a new space endurance record by traveling 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 liked to race cars and boats, and entered the $28,000 Salton City boat race, the Southwest Championship Drag Boat races in 1965, and the 1967 Orange Bowl Regatta with firefighter 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 After serving as backup commander of the Apollo 10 mission, he was superseded by Alan Shepard.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 Shawnee, Oklahoma, the only child of Leroy Gordon Cooper Sr. and his wife, Hattie Lee Herd. His father enlisted in the United States Navy during World War I. After the war, Cooper Sr. completed high school; Hattie Lee was one of the teachers, although she was only two years older. Cooper Sr. joined the Oklahoma National Guard, where he flew a Curtiss JN-4 biplane, graduated from law school, and became a state district judge. After active service in World War II, he transferred to United States Air Force (USAF) when it was formed in 1947, and was stationed at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii Territory.
Cooper attended Jefferson Elementary School and Shawnee High School, where he was on the football and track teams. During his senior year in high school, he played halfback on the football team that played in the state football championship. He was active in the Boy Scouts of America, where he achieved its second highest rank, Life Scout. His parents owned a Command-Aire 3C3 biplane, and he learned to fly at a young age. His father sat him on cushions so he could see and rigged the rudder pedals with blocks so he could reach them. He unofficially soloed when he was 12 years old, and earned his pilot license in a Piper J-3 Cub when he was 16. His family moved to Murray, Kentucky, when his father was called back into service, and he graduated from Murray High School in June 1945.
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. He left for Parris Island as soon as he graduated from high school, declining a football scholarship to Oklahoma A&M. World War II ended before he saw overseas service. He was assigned to the Naval Academy Preparatory School (NAPS) and was an alternate appointee to the United States Naval Academy (USNA) but was not appointed. After graduating from NAPS, he served with the Presidential Honor Guard in Washington, D.C. until he was discharged from the Marine Corps in 1946.
Following his discharge from the Marine Corps, Cooper went to Hawaii to live with his parents. He started attending the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and bought his own J-3 Cub. There he met his first wife, Trudy B. Olson (1927–1994) of Seattle, through the local flying club. She was active in flying and later became the only wife of a Mercury Seven astronaut to have a private pilot license. They were married on August 29, 1947, in Honolulu, when both were 20 years old. They had two daughters.
Military service At college, Cooper was active in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), which led to his being commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army in June 1949. He was able to transfer his commission to the United States Air Force in September. He received flight training at Perrin Air Force Base, Texas and Williams Air Force Base, Arizona, in the T-6 Texan.
On completion of his flight training in 1950, Cooper was posted to Neubiberg Air Base in West Germany, where he flew F-84 Thunderjets and F-86 Sabres for four years. He became a flight commander of the 525th Fighter Bomber Squadron. While in Germany, he attended the European Extension of the University of Maryland. He returned to the United States in 1954, and studied for two years at the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) in Ohio of Air University. He completed his Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering there on August 28, 1956.
While at AFIT, Cooper met Gus Grissom, a fellow USAF officer, and the two became good friends. They were involved in an accident on takeoff from Lowry Field on June 23, 1956, when the Lockheed T-33 Cooper was piloting suddenly lost power. He aborted the takeoff, but the landing gear collapsed. The aircraft skidded erratically for , and crashed at the end of the runway, bursting into flames. Cooper and Grissom escaped unscathed, although the aircraft was a total loss.
Cooper and Grissom attended the USAF Experimental Flight Test Pilot School (Class 56D) at Edwards Air Force Base in California in 1956. After graduation Cooper was posted to the Flight Test Engineering Division at Edwards, where he served as a test pilot and project manager testing the F-102A and F-106B. He also flew the T-28, T-37, F-86, F-100 and F-104. By the time he left Edwards, he had logged more than 2,000 hours of flight time, of which 1,600 hours were in jet aircraft.
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, Major General Marcus F. Cooper (no relation) recalled an announcement in the newspaper saying that a contract had been awarded to McDonnell Aircraft in St. Louis, Missouri, to build a space capsule, and advised his officers not to volunteer for astronaut training. "I don't want my best pilots involved in some idiotic program." On February 2, 1959, Cooper attended a briefing of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on Project Mercury, and the part astronauts would play in it. Cooper went through the selection process with another 109 pilots, and was not surprised when he was accepted as the youngest of the first seven American astronauts.
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.
The identities of the Mercury Seven were announced at a press conference at Dolley Madison House in Washington, D.C., on April 9, 1959: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton. Each was assigned a different portion of the project along with other special assignments. Cooper specialized in the Redstone rocket, which would be used for the first sub-orbital spaceflights. He also chaired the Emergency Egress Committee, responsible for working out emergency launch pad escape procedures, and engaged Bo Randall to develop a personal survival knife for astronauts to carry.
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 (). 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 Langley Air Force Base, and attempt to put in the required four hours a month, competing for T-33 aircraft with senior deskbound colonels and generals.
Cooper traveled to McGhee Tyson Air National Guard Base in Tennessee, where a friend let him fly higher-performance F-104B jets. This came up when Cooper had lunch with William Hines, a reporter for The Washington Star, and was duly reported in the paper. Cooper then discussed the issue with Congressman James G. Fulton. The matter was taken up by the House Committee on Science and Astronautics. Within weeks the astronauts had priority access to USAF F-102s, something which Cooper considered a "hot plane", but which could still take off from and land at short civilian airfields; however, this incident did not make Cooper popular with senior NASA management.
After General Motors executive Ed Cole presented Shepard with a brand-new Chevrolet Corvette, Jim Rathmann, a Chevrolet dealer in Melbourne, Florida, convinced Cole to turn this into an ongoing marketing campaign. Henceforth, astronauts were able to lease brand-new Corvettes for a dollar a year. All of the Mercury Seven except Glenn took up the offer. Cooper, Grissom, and Shepard raced their Corvettes around Cape Canaveral, with the police ignoring their exploits. From a marketing perspective, it was very successful and helped the highly priced Corvette become established as a desirable brand. Cooper held licenses with the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) and the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). He also enjoyed racing speedboats.
Cooper served as capsule communicator (CAPCOM) for NASA's first sub-orbital spaceflight, by Alan Shepard in Mercury-Redstone 3, and Scott Carpenter's orbital flight on Mercury-Atlas 7, and was backup pilot for Wally Schirra in Mercury-Atlas 8.
Mercury-Atlas 9
After Mercury-Atlas 8, Cooper was selected for the next mission, Mercury-Atlas 9 (). Apart from Slayton, who had been grounded due to an idiopathic atrial fibrillation, he was the only one of the Mercury Seven who had not yet flown in space. Cooper's selection was publicly announced on November 14, 1962, with Shepard designated as his backup.
Project Mercury had begun with a goal of ultimately flying an 18-orbit, mission, known as the manned one-day mission. On November 9, senior staff at the Manned Spacecraft Center decided to fly a mission as . Project Mercury remained years behind the Soviet Union's space program, which had already flown a mission in Vostok 3. When Atlas , the booster designated for , first emerged from the factory in San Diego on January 30, 1963, it failed to pass inspection and was returned to the factory. For Schirra's mission, 20 modifications had been made to the Mercury spacecraft; for Cooper's , 183 changes were made. Cooper decided to name his spacecraft, Mercury Spacecraft No. 20, Faith 7. NASA public affairs officers could see the newspaper headlines if the spacecraft were lost: "The United States today lost Faith".