1927- American astronaut whose flights generated crucial data on the challenges of long-duration space missions. Cooper, one of the seven original NASA astronauts, orbited Earth for 34 hours on the last of the Project Mercury missions and for eight...

Leroy Gordon "Gordo" Cooper, Jr. (March 6 1927 – October 4 2004) was an American astronaut. He was one of the original astronauts in Project Mercury, the first manned-space effort by the United...

Gordon Cooper, 77, one of the seven original U.S. astronauts, who made the nation's first manned spaceflights and became known as possessors of "The Right Stuff," died yesterday at his home in Ventura, Calif. The cause of death could not be learned immediately....

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The Record (Bergen County, NJ) 10-05-2004 Mercury 7 astronaut Gordon Cooper dies -- Space pioneer, who flew 22-orbit mission, was 77 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Date: 10-05-2004, Tuesday Section: NEWS Edtion: All Editions.=.Two Star B. Two Star P. One Star...

A rocket payload that flew briefly into space with ashes of astronaut Gordon Cooper and "Star Trek" actor James Doohan was recovered Friday in the New Mexico mountains.The payload was found in its designated recovery zone 20 days after Farmington, Conn.-based UP Aerospace sent it...

The cremated remains of actor James Doohan, who portrayed engineer "Scotty" on "Star Trek," and of Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper soared into suborbital space Saturday aboard a rocket.It was the first successful launch from Spaceport America, a commercial spaceport being developed in the southern New...