Mercury Seven astronaut Leroy Gordon Cooper, 1927-2004

[draconis]

Gakked from nevada....

It seems yesterday was a cause for both joy and sorry among fans of space exploration. On the same day that Space Ship One claimed the Ansari X-Prize by making her second successful 100-km-plus flight in under two weeks, Leroy Gordon Cooper, Jr, one of the Mercury Seven astronauts passed away.

On May 15, 1963, Cooper piloted the ``Faith 7'' spacecraft on a 22-orbit mission that concluded the operational phase of the Project Mercury. He flew for 34 hours and 20 minutes. Two years later, he served as command pilot of the Gemini 5 mission, during which he and Charles Conrad established a new space endurance record by traveling more than 3.3 million miles (5.3 million kilometers) in time of 190 hours, 56 minutes.

Some people think of things like our space program as a colossal waste of moneys that could be better spent exploring our own world, or improving our nation's infrastructure, or educational system, or feeding our hungry, or any of a long list of other things. I can see a certain validity to their point of view -- how can you look at a starving child and tell them that you don't have any money to give them food, because we really need to understand more about the surface of Mars? What these people cannot see is the long-term benefits to the entire world that have come out of the space program.

Unfortunately, these people also cannot see the contribution and the character of the men and women who make a career out of risking their lives in these endeavors. In my mind, these people do a grave dis-service to those men and women -- to their courage, and to the spirit that causes them to strap themselves to a huge bomb and trust that someone else has done his/her job well enough that when the bomb explodes, it will do so in a controlled and predicted fashion, rather than in a very impressive but deadly fireball. And then, to hope that if the fireball comes, it comes swiftly enough that they don't have to suffer overlong....

Whenever one of these fine men or women passes on, whether it be in the incandescent flare of engineering error or in the quiet of their own beds, I cannot help but think of the poem "High Flight" by John GIllespie Magee, Jr.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
- John Gillespie Magee, Jr., "High Flight"


Gordon, you did things no one in the world had ever done before. For a time, you were counted as the greatest pilot the world had ever seen, having flown higher, farther, and faster than any before you. We can only speculate about where you are now, but if there is any justice in this universe, you've surely "earned your wings".

God speed.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Amen.

I have that poem hanging where I can see it from here. I've liked it since I was old enough to read.... and while that date doesn't predate Gordo Cooper's flights, it's still been a long time.