Gordon Cooper

L. Gordon 'Gordo' Cooper, Jr. (born March 6, 1927) was one of the original "Mercury 7" pilots in the Mercury program, America's first manned-space effort.

A US Air Force test pilot, Cooper was launched into space May 15, 1963, on the last Mercury mission. He orbited the Earth 22 times and logged more time in space than all five previous Mercury astronauts combined, also becoming the first American astronaut to sleep in orbit. His mission lasted 34 hours, 19 minutes and 49 seconds, during which he completed 22 orbits and traveled 546,167 miles at 17,547 miles per hour and pulled a maximum of 7.6 Gs. He achieved an altitude of 165.9 statute miles at apogee.

Two years later, August 21, 1965, Cooper was the commander of Gemini 5, part of the Gemini program, on an eight-day mission with Charles Conrad Jr. Cooper was the first person to make a second orbital flight.

He was scheduled to fly in the Apollo program but never made it into space again.