Leroy Gordon Cooper, Jr.

Leroy Gordon Cooper, Jr. (1927-2004), American astronaut, whose two flights proved a person could survive a long duration in space (see Space Exploration).

Cooper was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma. He joined the United States Marines near the end of World War II in 1945, and served as a member of the Presidential Honor Guard. After one year of service and three years at the University of Hawaii, Cooper rejoined the armed forces, enlisting in the U.S. Air Force. He graduated from the Air Force Institute of Technology in 1956 with a degree in aeronautical engineering. Cooper became an experimental flight engineer and test pilot at the Air Force Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base, California. He was working there in 1959 when he was selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to be one of the first seven Project Mercury astronauts.

Cooper's first space flight on May 15 and 16, 1963, lasted for 22 orbits around Earth, the last and longest of the Project Mercury flights. The principal goal of this flight was to learn to manage resources such as fuel and air over a longer period of time. Besides setting an American record in flight duration, Cooper accomplished a number of space firsts. He was the first pilot to control his capsule's reentry from space, the first American astronaut to sleep in space, and the first to use a television camera.

In August 1965, with Pete Conrad, Cooper flew on the Gemini 5 mission. Gemini 5 was designed to prove that humans could survive in space for eight days, the length of the proposed missions to the moon. The Gemini flight experienced some problems. Unlike earlier flights, which used battery power, Gemini 5 was equipped with fuel cells. These fuel cells did not function properly and the flight was completed only by running systems on minimum power and allowing the spacecraft to drift until it was time to return to Earth. With the completion of the Gemini flight, Cooper reset his own American space duration record and became the first person to fly twice in space.

Cooper remained an astronaut until 1970, when he resigned from NASA and the air force with the rank of colonel. Cooper then entered private industry and worked for a variety of companies, among them ones that designed and built high-performance automobiles and boats. Cooper’s memoir, Leap of Faith: An Astronaut's Journey into the Unknown, was published in 2000.