Gordon Cooper was an American astronaut and test pilot, known for being one of the original seven astronauts selected for the Mercury program. He flew in space twice, first on the Mercury-Atlas 9 mission in 1963, where he orbited Earth 22 times, and later on the Gemini 5 mission in 1965, which lasted over eight days. Cooper was born on March 6, 1927, in Shawnee, Oklahoma. He served in the U.S. Air Force before joining NASA, where he became a key figure in the early years of human spaceflight. He passed away on October 4, 2004.