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Author
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Topic: Copper Returns to Pad 14
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Ken Havekotte
Member Posts: 2913
From: Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard
Registered: Mar 2001
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posted 05-25-2003 05:36 PM
   
Just a quick mention that Mercury and Gemini astronaut L. Gordon Cooper, Jr. was back at the Cape on May 18, 2003, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his first space voyage. The 76-year old retired Air Force Colonel, his wife and two of his daughters, attended a private reunion and anniversary celebration that was hosted by the 45th Space Wing of Patrick Air Force Base and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the University of Central Florida, and the U.S. Space Walk of Fame Foundation. SpaceCoast Cover Service of Merritt Island, FL, was also one of the support sponsors for the special event. What made the event so special was that it was Cooper's first return to his original oceanside launch site, Pad 14, in more than 25 years. About 100 people attended the 3-hour event for Cooper's Mercury-Atlas 9/Faith 7 launch on May 15, 1963, that completed Project Mercury's first-men-in space program. Most of those in attendance were MA-9 launch team members and support workers such as Calvin Fowler, the actual
"button pusher" for Cooper's Atlas 130D launch vehicle, first Cape fire chief Norris Gray and Charlie Mars, currently the president of the U.S. Space Walk of Fame Foundation in Titusville, FL. Cooper's Faith 7 spacecraft orbited the Earth 22 times in just over 34 hours--a big endurance record for the U.S. and a space race first with the Russians during that era! Despite the failure of two inverters which caused reentry to be made by the manual control system of the Mercury capsule, it was so accurate that the splashdown of Faith 7 was within 8,700 yards of the prime recovery ship in the Pacific. |
spaceuk
Member Posts: 2113
From: Staffs, UK
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted 05-25-2003 06:08 PM
Kenenjoyed the write-up - so much so that I have put together a "quickie " web page showing the memorial plaque at Complex 14 (which I saw many decades ago) and an image of Calvin pushing 'THAT' button ! (Its the real consoles but pic was simulated for the Company PR folk). Phill
UK
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spaceuk
Member Posts: 2113
From: Staffs, UK
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted 05-25-2003 06:09 PM
The web page is at :-
http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~spaceuk/complex14/index.html
Phill
UK
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