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Astronaut Gordon 'Gordo' Cooper, 1927-2004
Grant writes "Leroy Gordon 'Gordo' Cooper, one of America's first seven astronauts, died today in his home at the age of 77. A number of space related sites are carrying the news." Grant points to coverage at SpaceRef.com, Space.com, Nasa Watch, and CNN, writing "His accomplishments will continue to inspire and he will be missed."
Blue skies, Gordo.
The same day that the first hobbyist rocket went to space was the first day an astronaut died of old age...
Yes, it is. I hope that he knew about Rutan's achievement before he died.
RIP Gordo, the world could sure use a few more of you.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I still love the famous line from the "Right Stuff" Who's the best pilot you ever saw......you're looking at him! I was just over 3 years old when he flew in Faith 7, and it was nice back then to have real "heros" to look up to, unlike the gansters that todays youth look up to. God speed Gordo Cooper! I'm sure you, Gus, Deke, and Alan are having a good time catching up on things up there in heaven......
Stupid media. Always going after the useless thing.
Kinda OT, but:
It's been said once, it's been said a million times: SpaceShipOne does not mean that NASA is a useless, wasteful government agency. SpaceShipOne did not go into orbit, a very major distinction (not to knock what they did). But it's a very different ball game, and NASA does quite a bit of other research as well. Who do you think did the inital research that developed many of the technologies that SpaceShipOne uses? It's not a nail in the coffin of government-sponsered spaceflight research.
Consider that he outlived more than 50% of his military peers. Being an Astronaut proved to be much safer than being a test pilot. Even though none of us that remember all the Mercury flights thought so at the time. Most of the test flights had blown up. I always thought that those guys had a large pair hanging inline for speed.
Gordo is now meeting with Shepard, Slayton, Grissom and Conrad. That should be a party. It's hard to believe that Glenn and Schirra are the only ones left.
Godspeed Gordo, we will miss you.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
The first group of astronauts were at the apex of the pilot pyramid. A VERY competitive field. Test pilots are engineers who happen to fly extremely well.
And it was not quite as simple as you make it seem, because no one had ever done it before. NASA didn't simply build it and dump some random warm body in it. The astronauts were as much a part of the development team as the sliderule carrying geeks. The campaigned (and won) for windows ("Oh, the extra stress factor!"), and a control stick to actually fly the damn thing.
Get off your military bashing, and realize that some people go into the military for other reasons beyond "a bleak future". That is the only place where you can fly fighter jets. If you'd ever flown or ridden in one, or known some of these pilots, you might get the merest inkling of what these guys were all about.
How many times have innovators become the major obstruction, either deliberately or even just by being there? Sometimes, you have to let go, in order to move on.
Gordon Cooper represented the Old Order. The NASA way of doing things. The big-budget, cutting-edge frontier of science way of viewing the world. In his time, that was an essential perspective. Nobody could do anything, if it weren't for the first few. Nobody would know how, and few enough of those would be willing to take such enormous risks.
Without the achievements of the Americans in the form of NASA, the Russians and (ultimately) the Germans, SpaceShipOne would never have existed. Even the very recent work (eg: remote-controlled probes and landers, the ion drive and guidance system AI of DS-1, etc) will be essential for successful migration to a space-based society.
Let's not forget the other players, either. The British HOTOL program (despite being cancelled) did result in a lot of progress in engine technology. It also inspired a lot of progress in reusability, far beyond NASA's vision of the Space Shuttle.
The Australians, too, with their successful development of SCRAM-jet technology, have made it viable, for the first time, to think of vehicles capable of reaching LEO without the aid of rockets. None of this is research the private sector could have afforded, even if it had the vision necessary to understand what could be done.
Every single one of the pioneering astronauts, Gordon Cooper amongst them, represented this kind of heavy-duty R&D. They were, after all, the guys test-flying this stuff. If they did not absolutely understand what they were doing, did not absolutely understand the capabilities and behaviour of what they were flying, they probably wouldn't have made it back to Earth.
Those who have died along the way have invariably done so because either they, or those they depended upon, did NOT have that depth of understanding. That's not a critisism - it's a plain and simple fact. The more unknowns you face, the lower your chances of survival. The only way to ensure survival, therefore, is to know as much as physically possible.
There's a lot of cutting-edge R&D that still needs to be done, by the Gordon Coopers of the world. But not for sub-orbital and LEO flights. That work's been done. It's been done well enough that Scaled Composites could build a vehicle capable of a 70+ mile altitude (mostly) controlled flight.
Gordon Cooper has earned his rest. The day the X-Prize was won proved, beyond all doubt, that his work had a meaning beyond the (somewhat inane and childish) political squabbles of the 60s. I hope he did get to see the flight that secured the prize. His send-off was the successful transfer of the edge of space to humanity. If you're going to die, could you ask for anything better?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Before long there could be no one alive who has set foot anywhere other than Earth. That's damning.