The Art Neuro Weblog

The Passing of The 'Right' Staff
Gordon Cooper, the last of the Mercury Astronauts passed away. Cooper, who was played by the young Dennis Quaid in the movie of 'The Right Stuff' was perhaps the most intersting character amongst the hyper-macho bunch. He is remembered for his sense of humour that is on record to this day.

During his Mercury flight, Mr. Cooper converted a technical problem into a personal triumph. Equipment that was supposed to provide electricity for the reentry control system failed to function. Mr. Cooper found it necessary to fly his capsule to an ocean landing without the assistance of the usual variety of automated devices. He landed the capsule himself, 7,000 yards from an aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean. President John F. Kennedy, who had committed the nation to making a moon landing, called Mr. Cooper's achievement "one of the great victories for the human spirit."

Later, Mr. Cooper served as the command pilot of the Gemini 5 mission, which lasted for eight days, beginning Aug. 21, 1965. On that flight, he and fellow astronaut Charles Conrad set a record for time in space, when they covered 3,312,993 miles in 190 hours and 56 minutes. Mr. Cooper, the first man to make two orbital flights, accumulated a total of 225 hours and 15 minutes in space.

He "was one of the faces of America's fledgling space program," NASA administrator
Sean O'Keefe said. He "helped gain the backing and enthusiasm of the American public, so critical for the spirit of exploration," O'Keefe added. In addition to Mr. Cooper, who was an Air Force colonel, the original astronauts were Alan Shepard Jr., Virgil "Gus" Grissom, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Walter "Wally" Schirra Jr. and Donald "Deke" Slayton. They were celebrated as exemplars of "The Right Stuff" in the book of that name by Tom Wolfe and in the subsequent movie.

He was 77. While the case still holds that the Mercury Astronauts were rarely anything more than monkeys in a chamber, and that if the aim was simply to get samples from the moon, NASA would have achieved that objective 5 years earlier without the necessity of it being a manned flight. Nonetheless, as Gus Grissom noted in the movie, it still stands that "the issue isn't pussy, it's monkey". We are not monkeys. We are humans, trying to pilot our destiny.
All Hail Gordo Cooper.

- Art Neuro