"I'll Do It Myself": The Greatest Feat of Piloting in Space

On April 9, 1959, the newly-formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, introduced the world to a new breed of heroes: the Mercury Seven, America’s first astronauts. Se-lected from a pool of over 500 military test pilots, these men represented the best the nation had to offer, and its best hope in the intensifying Space Race against the Soviets. Almost immediately, the Mercury Seven became national heroes: on May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard would became the first American in space, while on February 20, 1962, John Glenn would become the first American to orbit the earth, a feat which catapulted him to superstardom. But among these early pioneers was an astronaut who, while less well-known to the public, would become a legend in the aviation com-munity. His name was Gordo Cooper.

[@N1RKW]

My favorite Gordo Cooper quote is from near the end of his Mercury flight when pretty much every system in the capsule was starting to fail, including life support. Gordo, in his usual relaxed style described the situation by saying, "Things are beginning to stack up a little."

[@Dragonblaster1]

Gordo was an honorary Brit.

[@TheEmeraldMenOfficial]

@@Dragonblaster1 With that name, I’d say you’re rather qualified. All jokes aside, though, yeah, this guy’s probably Jebediah’s role model.

[@Dragonblaster1]

@@TheEmeraldMenOfficial I am a Brit, TEMO!

[@harveywallbanger3123]

Gordo was a real maverick. He literally snuck into the Mercury program despite being a wildman who was separated from his wife. Chris Kraft nearly shat his pants having to deal with his boat, plane and Corvette racing nature. The man buzzed the NASA complex in a Delta Dagger interceptor just for fun and Kraft had to threaten to fire him to get him to calm down. He had the right stuff.

[@thepagnaet6361]

Most of those early astronauts were total legends. No joke.

[@Rorschachs_Blot]

Legends... Raid Shadow Legends- the No.1 mobile RPG!

[@jasynwheeler4414]

Absolute legends my fellow blazers

[@arfanmedni7294]

Now they're tourists

[@hankblaster]

Agreed. Not all. Most.

[@imperfectly-balanced8861]

Totally! Remember when Buzz Aldrin punched that conspiracy theorist in the face a few years ago?! 🤣

[@AnnoyingMoose]

1) He was the only non-smoker in the Mercury 7 2) He said a prayer from orbit 3) He designed the first mission patch This is the first time that I have heard these bits of trivia! I admire Gordo even more now!

[@giantskunk]

He also helped design the astronaut survival knife with Randall Knives.

[@Alan_Connor]

NASA censored his mission patch by covering up the "8 days or bust" just in case the mission had to end early.

[@harveywallbanger3123]

He was also the only Mercury astronaut that had any of the daredevil traits that Chuck Yeager epitomized. NASA wanted 7 Boy Scouts, and they accidentally picked up Gordo as well... mostly because he had a Masters' Degree in Aeronautical Engineering and lied about his marriage being true blue and A-ok (when in reality they were scandalously separated, only reuniting for the cameras once Gordo got the job).

[@zxq9419]

"...is portrayed as a cocky fighter jock... however, the real Cooper was considerably more soft-spoken..." [proceed to cite numerous examples of how he wasn't just outspoken but _did_ cocky things that got him in trouble his entire career]

[@nigeldepledge3790]

While Cooper's feat of piloting the reentry of Faith 7 manually is indeed remarkable, I think there's another contender for the greatest feat of piloting in space : Neil Armstrong's recovery of the uncontrolled roll encountered during Gemini VIII.

[@minorityofthought1306]

I thought of this one first, as I was unaware of Gordon's feat.

[@dukecraig2402]

As well as Armstrong taking control of the LEM on Apollo 11 during the descent and flying it to an acceptable landing area.

[@saulnier]

The manual DPS burn to adjust Apollo13's drift before re-entry by Jim Lovell and Fred Haise.

[@robertf3479]

Therein is the reason NASA chose to draw their spacecraft commanders from the ranks of Test Pilots. These guys never learned how to quit, to simply curl up and die when it all goes wrong. I am firmly convinced that if Columbia's crew had known how badly the shuttle had been damaged at launch, the Commander and Pilot would have done their best to give the rest of their crew at least a slim chance of survival.

[@dukecraig2402]

@@saulnier That's a good one, gotta be in the top 3 of all time.

[@minorityofthought1306]

It's official. Simon doesn't sleep. Eventually every channel on youtube will be narrated by Simon.

[@e2rqey]

I for one, welcome our new bearded overlord.

[@brokentombot]

Does he have like 9 channels he hosts now? wtf

[@JohnUnsub]

@@brokentombot Something like that, not quite a superhuman feat but he definitely spends a large portion of his days on narration

[@bombomos]

Pretty sure he is an AI

[@uprebel5150]

Eight channels, eight personalities.

[@jeremythornton433]

The early astronauts were absolute heroes in my young eyes! Born in 1955, I was at the perfect age to witness these marvels! They were giants to me!

[@darylcheshire1618]

I thought Neil Armstrong’s manual landing on the moon was pure badassery.

[@owensmith7530]

Hmm. Depends what you mean by manual. In the LM when you twist the joystick what you get is a particular amount of delta V. The computer works out how much thrust that requires, which goes down as the craft burns fuel and gets lighter. Armstrong was not manually opening thruster valves. Similarly the 8 ball was still showing which way was up, and they knew their altitude because the landing radar told them. But it was actually even less manual than that, Armstrong was simply designating a new landing position as seen in the marked grid in the window and telling the computer to land over there rather than where it originally intended to land. Which is like changing your mind about where you've told your satnav you want to go.

[@drewski5730]

I am a bush pilot, and after I watched the movie “first man,” I can tell you I have never been in such awe of a pilot in my life. Armstrong piloted a floatplane without enough fuel for an alternate onto a different planet that no one had ever seen before. There was no runway, not enough fuel, a copilot that was bitching and didn’t follow procedure, under conditions that were only simulated to the point of best calculations and guesses, no rescue flight, an aircraft that had paper thin walls, and a landing area that was surrounded by rocks the size of Volkswagen beetles, and he had to do it on first attempt manually. Armstrong was a god. He was Wayne Gretzky that scored twice the all time points total, with testicles twice the size of Alexander the Great. I am not articulate enough to put into words what Armstrong did, but rest assured the red baron himself would have been humbled in his presence.

[@billmullins6833]

@Drewski, read Yeager's book and you'll find out what an asshole Armstrong could be. Oh, and Buzz Aldrin was by all accounts the flat-out best LEM pilot (and arguably the most intelligent man) in the program. Armstrong was an arrogant fool to fly the landing himself instead of letting Aldrin do it. Armstrong had a stick up his ass as being the only non-military pilot in the program. He never wasted an opportunity to put down military pilots.

[@parkerbond9400]

Except it wasn't exactly manual. More like he was manually changing the landing site. There's a great video on the Apollo guidance computer that goes into this and other aspects in detail.

[@LuinTathren]

Close encounters of the TURD kind This is why I love these channels. Absolute punny perfection!

[@joseph-mariopelerin7028]

yes... he remind me a 6 years old summer camp monitor try to entertain a bunch of snotty kid... you like that yah

[@LordOfNihil]

he wins an internet for that one.

[@alexbarnett8541]

Nobody wants a close encounter of the turd kind. Plus doctors strongly recommend against flying during your turd trimester.

[@MrOrchidion]

@@joseph-mariopelerin7028 it's called having a sense of humor. get over yourself dude.

[@MrOrchidion]

Simon can be pretty hilarious :P

[@darrennicol2442]

Loved the episode, best part, Simon's remark "Close encounter's of the Turd kind" delivered with a straight face.

[@RCAvhstape]

The Right Stuff plays fast and loose with historical facts but it's still a badass movie about a bunch of badass guys. And since the real Chuck Yeager made a cameo in it, that adds like 50 extra badass points automatically just from him being in proximity.

[@sparkplug1018]

Yeah they did take more then a few artistic liberties with it. Like Jack Ridley having died several years before Yeager's NF-104 crash or Cooper's Mercury flight. But it gets the general gist right, and aside from a badass soundtrack makes people want to learn more.

[@JPMadden]

It's my favorite movie but one part of it is very wrong--the flight of Gus Grissom. It portrays him as panicked when his capsule is in the ocean. I've listened to his mission's recording, and he was as calm as all the rest of the astronauts, even sounding indifferent when he was told his recovery would take longer than initially thought. The film also fails to mention that it was determined that his hatch with explosive bolts had indeed opened by itself. He was not to blame. If NASA had not trusted him, he wouldn't have commanded the first Gemini mission or died while training to command the first Apollo mission.

[@RCAvhstape]

@@JPMadden I believe it was the author of the book, Tom Wolf, who was responsible for spreading bad info about Grissom. In any case the capsule was recovered in the early 2000's and NASA confirmed that the problem was with the hatch design.

[@WanderingYankee]

Quick clarification ... If you come in for reentry too shallow, you will indeed 'skip off' the atmosphere, but you will NOT be lost in orbit forever. Once you leave the drag of the atmosphere, the lowest point of your orbit (perigee) is fixed until you reenter the atmosphere again. That means you WILL enter the atmosphere again, and slow down even more. This is still a bad situation because your landing area will be somewhere else, possibly on land, or in an area far from recovery teams, or even in a foreign country.

[@markreeve2087]

Thanks for pointing this out. I annoys me every-time. Skipping off the atmosphere does not somehow give the craft a bunch of energy and a stable orbit >

[@JPMadden]

I believe skipping off the atmosphere was a concern for the Apollo crews returning from the Moon, because they were travelling faster than orbital velocity. I wonder if they would have had enough fuel to enter a higher-than-usual orbit and fired retro rockets to slow down and enter the atmosphere.

[@dsdy1205]

@@JPMadden They were not travelling fast enough to escape after reentry, or indeed even before reentry. The concern with Apollo reentries was that the Command Module batteries could only last so long once reentry began. If you had to wait for the second reentry, the capsule would have already died, along with the people inside.

[@JPMadden]

I did not say they were travelling fast enough to escape. I was curious about the Apollo reentry velocity, so I googled it and got several numbers between 24,000 and 24,500 mph. The escape velocity of Earth is 11.186 km/s, or 25,022 mph. When I wondered whether the crew would have had enough fuel for a second reentry attempt, it seemed unnecessary to also mention electricity, oxygen, water, and food.

[@harveywallbanger3123]

Wrong. Just... so much wrong. Mercury's heat shield wasn't as good as Apollo's. If they deviated from a 5-degree arc when reentering, the terminal shock on the phenolic resin would fracture it before it could liquefy and the capsule would burn up. They needed to reenter at a shallow angle so the resin could melt and then char properly, ablating the heat. If he'd bounced off the atmosphere, he'd have either run out of air waiting to re-enter, or he'd have re-entered at a angle too steep to survive. Educate yourself.

[@martinarcher1503]

Armstrong's recovery of Gemini 8 from a one second full rotation spin was a far greater piece of piloting imo. His co-pilot Dave Scott said he saved their lives and that he could not have done it himself. This and the various other incredible things Armstrong did in his career place him above every other piot imo

[@dfuher968]

And yet Chuck Yeager is generally, by pilots themselves, considered the best of them all. But Yeager was not even allowed to try out for the new astronaut programme, coz he didnt have a college degree, despite him having a far more impressive record as a pilot than any of the others. Not to throw shade on Armstrong or any of the others, they were serious badasses and amazing pilots. Just thought, I'd mention, what has always seemed an insane decision by NASA to pre exclude the best pilot in the US, if not the world, at the time, simply coz he didnt go to college.

[@martinarcher1503]

@@dfuher968 and Yeager never missed a chance to say he was the best ever, whereas Armstrong never once bragged. He didn't have to.

[@harveywallbanger3123]

Armstrong was the repudiation of the Chuck Yeager School of Pilots. "If you ain't loud, and you ain't proud, you ain't shit." Neil was a consummate professional and a very meek and mild-mannered man, but he was every bit Yeager's equal when it came to the hardcore crunch of demanding test flights. He was respected long before he even hit the Apollo module.

[@drewski5730]

Armstrong is the patron saint of aviation.

[@robertf3479]

I think it was Armstrong's recovery from the Gemini 8 near fatal fiasco that earned him his place on Apollo 11, just my opinion.

[@4stringmanagmaildcom]

I'm an aerospace fan, watched the Mercury launches live as a child, the Right Stuff is in my top 5, but I had never heard of him flying a manual reentry. Good info.

[@OboeCanAm]

It's surprising that details of his flight were left out of the movie, because much of the script focused on the importance of a pilot having the ability to control the Mercury spacecraft.

[@4stringmanagmaildcom]

@@OboeCanAm I agree. Although, it is quite a long movie and like all movies they no doubt had to leave out a lot of details. They do honor him at the end where the narrator, Levon Helm says he indeed was the greatest pilot ever for a day on his flight.

[@jaykay6387]

It's in the book but not the movie. Gordo Cooper was a badass. The status of the capsule was even worse than what the host described, basically every system was cratering at the same time. Cooper was one of those guys who "painted outside the lines" a little too often, though, which ended up ruining his career at NASA. Back in those days, you had to be a super straight arrow John Glenn type or at least pretend to be. Gordo was never going to be a "corporate bitch", he was just too much of an independent thinker.

[@4stringmanagmaildcom]

@@jaykay6387 I read the book many years ago. I had forgotten about that. Gordon sounds a bit like me and my non conformist streak. Haha.

[@jaykay6387]

@@4stringmanagmaildcom I've always believed that the director of the film inserted that "greatest pilot you ever saw" stuff as an homage to Cooper because he got screwed over by NASA and that was his way of "setting the record straight". Cooper was a guy who clearly deserved to go the distance in his career " but unfortunately politics infects every area of life. Sometimes the absolute best don't get to the finish line, it's the "pretty good" that know how to kiss ass.

[@MarielaQue]

Highlight History - The forgotten stepchild

[@logandarklighter]

And now you know why the lead character in Christopher Nolan’s *Interstellar* is named Cooper.

[@DrakeMagnum]

Geeeez I feel stupid for not thinking of this. Thank you!

[@crazya3466]

Can't deny his ability to pilot a craft from space to an almost perfect splash down,dude nailed it 🖒 🇺🇸 .. cA

[@lorentzinvariant7348]

I know a Siberian Husky named in honor of Gordon Cooper. Gordo is the best husky anybody ever saw!

[@TheQuickSilver101]

Wow, Gordo Cooper was a real legend.

[@danieltan8107]

Last time I was this early, ETA was still a co host

[@hoyden1960]

Please do a video on Gemini 8. I think that coupled with the crash of “the flying bedstead” demonstrates how gifted a pilot Neil Armstrong was.

[@michaelparks6120]

These were very brave men.

[@zuliuc8675]

Simon be like "Oh shit right the Highlight History channel, forgot about that one whoopsie."

[@davidgifford8112]

excellent review of Cooper. I’ve read a few Mercury Astronaut biographies. Both Slayton and Shepard were grounded for medical reasons so we’re given control of astronaut assignments. Slayton often remarked about choosing the “best qualified” to fly a mission. The name of the best qualified was normally Deke Slayton, however he was grounded. He resented being bumped by Carpenter for 2nd orbital mission and was always on the back of both Cooper and Carpenter who he considered “less qualified” test pilots than the others. It is also interesting to note that both Carpenter and Cooper were both interested in the science and exploration of space. To Slayton it as just another form of test flying. In fact Cooper was a close friend of Von Braun and thought he stood a chance of commanding the first manned Mars mission, then planned for 1985. A future that never was.

[@JamesOberg]

Sadly, Cooper got old and befuddled [Parkinson's, probably] and voyaged off into la-la-land in his twilight years. And the con men swooped in to exploit his weakened mind, shamefully.

[@harveywallbanger3123]

Deke Slayton was without a doubt the secret power broker of the Apollo program, even more so than Kraft. He DEEPLY, DEEPLY resented being grounded and saddled with the Den Mother role, and the only way he was able to process that shame and resentment was to become Chris Kraft's hatchetman to the best of his ability. He became a humorless martinet, because that was what his new job was and he desperately wanted to keep working with NASA. His later spontaneous recovery and promotion to flight status was a direct reward for this instantaneous change in attitude. Make no mistake, NASA rewarded obedience above all.

[@chriggsiii]

This was one of my biggest beefs about the movie, The Right Stuff. The fact is that the book assesses the history and concludes that the astronauts were just as impressive at piloting as the Chuck Yeager school. The movie, in its conclusion, clearly comes to the OPPOSITE conclusion, ending with a triumphant Yeager, giving very short shrift to Cooper's miracle landing, which is the emotional high point of the book. I'm very surprised that the book's author did not protest that 180 degree change in emphasis. It made mincemeant of the movie, in my opinion.

[@ferociousgumby]

Yeah, I don't even remember Cooper in that movie.

[@Egilhelmson]

@@ferociousgumby Gordon Cooper was played by Dennis Quaid. On the TV/DVD version, it mentions him flying higher longer and faster while solo, thus being, for that brief period, truly the greatest pilot ever. I never saw it in theaters, so I cannot disprove your statement about Yeager supposedly disparaging the astronauts, although I remember that it was somebody else, at Edwards AFB, and he defended them for flying in the rockets.

[@harveywallbanger3123]

Yeager was the star of the 50s but was too cool to go to school, so he was left behind. He ran his mouth because he was bitter he wasn't picked. He didn't realize the difference between the X-1 cockpit that had several dozen switches and the Mercury cockpit which had several HUNDRED switches, most of which did things that made no sense inside the earth's atmosphere. He was out of his league and he knew it and thus he complained out of pride.

[@rustyrobots426]

Every time I think I've found all of Simon's channels another pops up 😂

[@WillowTDog]

Same.

[@everydayhero5076]

Right there with ya.

[@msudawg1997]

In the late 90s I was working for Rocketdyne on the SSP. One day I had the opportunity and honor to tour Mr. Cooper around the engine deck at the test stand. As I recall, this wasn't very long before his passing.

[@montewright111]

The BEST of the Best of the BEST.....SIR !!

[@iverson7x]

I smashed the Like button, as suggested, and now I need to repair my screen.

[@CrainPhotography]

Thank you for this. "Coop" has always been my favorite character in The Right Stuff". It put a huge smile on my face to hear that he was indeed, actually; "The Best Pilot You Ever Saw", if even for awhile. I truly appreciate what you do.

[@LU-nc6oy]

Brings tears to my eyes.... Because of how literal bad ass this man was....black Lines on a God damn spacecraft window and a wrist watch... They don't make them like how they used to.

[@LU-nc6oy]

@L Train45 I wonder if Heroes like Gordon Cooper or Neil Armstrong took time out of their day to correct other people's spelling and grammar? Probably not because they have better things to do with their literal time unlike you. Thanks for the heads up professor.

[@gemman1]

Slayton had to buy a round of drinks for EVERY Turtle who was present not just the one who asked the question...

[@bingosunnoon9341]

He makes a lot of factual mistakes for a know it all.

[@johnburt1172]

Every Turtle who was within earshot, which given that millions, especially those who were interested in space flight (such as pilots), were listening on television and radio, would have been *_thousands_* of Turtles . . . .

[@craigpardy6204]

He was the most trustworthy and possibly highest ranking UFologist there was. He never wavered from his story to his dying day, and with all the threats he still couldn't be silenced. Never made a penny from it either, only hardship.

[@tommypetraglia4688]

Prolly would be an anti masker/vaxxer were he alive today

[@yoremothra9838]

@@tommypetraglia4688 thank you for that tommy pee

[@Yaivenov]

And now we have the government releasing UFO tapes. Dude deserves a lot of apologies.

[@BatMan-xr8gg]

The reason the Govts around the world keep this info secret, is because the majority of Humans would panic and go into mass hysteria. Especially the Religious ones. I for one believe in them.

[@Yaivenov]

@@BatMan-xr8gg bullshit. They keep it to themselves because knowledge is power.

[@jonm3024]

7:55 it is a common innaccuracy to say "skip off the atmosphere and be stranded in orbit". Earths border between the atmosphere and space is gradual and not immediate like the border between the air and water of a lake lake. There is no "skipping". You simply don't get deep enough into the atmosphere to shed the necessary amount of energy to fall to the surface on the first entry, forcing a second entry into the atmosphere. In the case of Apollo 13 this would have been catastrophic as their speed was quite a bit higher and if they didn't fall to the surface the first time it would have been days before their second try. However, as i understand it, in this case, he was simply in low earth orbit. Meaining that it would have been likely about an hour or 2 before his second entry into the atmosphere, something that I would imagine would have been survivable, though not ideal. Also, there is the risk that upon the second entry you aren't lined up to enter at the proper angle and wind up coming in to steep. edit: BTW. first paragraph is accurate. second paragraph is my speculation

[@harveywallbanger3123]

It would have also been catastrophic in Mercury. The phenolic heat shields were not as well-developed as they were during Apollo, and despite the greatly decreased velocity vs. a lunar return trajectory he still would have been in SERIOUS shit if he bounced and returned at an angle greater than +/- 5 degrees, because the shields were very fragile at the time and could not take many PSI of terminal shock without shattering like a brick hit with a hammer.

[@evilpandakillabzonattkoccu4879]

Faith 7 is an amazing story!

[@DeronJ]

2:33 CapCom = Capsule Communication, not Capsule Commander.

[@krodmandoon3479]

No they're the guys who make Street Fighter

[@tetchedistress]

Thank you

[@auburnalum9019]

5:58 thank you so much for recognizing the prayer. There is such hate towards any faith in these days it is wonderful for the recognition. You have wonderful content and I look forward to all the videos

[@tommypetraglia4688]

If Faith wasn't used to foment hate and prejudices, preaching politics from the pulpit and using is as a political cudgel there wouldn't be such disdain for those who profess it.

[@rickmemmer5625]

@@tommypetraglia4688 Thank you 🙏 for saving me the time to say the same. Well done ✅

[@mickwilson99]

Well, hell yeah! Further, higher, faster!

[@michelle60134]

To be stuffed in a spacesuit and then stuffed in a tiny capsule and then shot on a rocket with enough fuel in it to evaporate you you get into space then hurtle at thousands of miles an hour back to the earth to splashdown into the ocean and to do this for your country Yes these guys were and will always be HEROES

[@teemuleppa3347]

im not even surprised anymore when i find new simon channel

[@alexhurst3986]

I've been missing these!

[@TheYurisam]

Great video! It’s fitting that it would be Gordon Cooper’s badass flying skills that brought him home. Once again wonderful video!

[@greaseman01]

Good solid format for this channel some lesser known history facts kinda like Mark Felton Productions

[@Benson_aka_devils_advocate_88]

"The History Guy" is also an excellent channel

[@sheslikeheroin93]

That's an insult to mark felton tbh

[@piercebros]

@@sheslikeheroin93 Hear hear

[@bmofano]

Shameless

[@randommadness1021]

@@sheslikeheroin93 totally agree. Mark Felton is unbelievably professional.

[@PrinceAlhorian]

Gordon Cooper became the most epic single pilot the western world has ever seen as being the last American to orbit solo and spend the most time in space solo.

[@Dervraka]

Those early astronauts really wanted to do all the flying themselves, they were quite peeved that many of the flight processes were automated and didn't trust the autopilot systems (which admittedly were very primitive back in those days). Compare that to the modern ships like the crew dragon where literally everything is automated and there is really nothing at all for the crew to do but sit there.

[@theofficialdiamondlou2418]

Gordo WAS the Greatest Pilot , The only human to ever manually reentry ...

[@Surrenitie]

I might be wrong but didn't Apollo 13 conduct a manual reentry or at least manual aim?

[@theofficialdiamondlou2418]

@@Surrenitie from what I understand it was an alignment burn for reinsertion into an orbital plane . Before reentry. But I could well be wrong. Just going off of memory.

[@efulmer8675]

@@Surrenitie Apollo 13 performed four burns: 1) Return to free-return trajectory. A few hours before the explosion, Apollo 13 had to make a midcourse correction in order to align for a lunar orbit. This took them off of a free-return trajectory, meaning that if they did nothing they would not return to Earth in any suitable manner. This first burn was to reestablish the free-return trajectory, so that if they could do nothing else after this, they would at least return to Earth. They completed this burn about 5 hours after the explosion. 2) Speed up the return. Engineers and doctors on the ground worked out what consumables they had, how long they would last, and what they could skimp on and what they could not. They determined that the margin of error was thin, especially if anything else happened. So, other engineers calculated a new burn, one that would speed their return home. This burn was completed about 2 hours after they had come back from around the Moon, and it's probably this burn that you're thinking of. This is the burn where Tom Hanks eyeballed it by keeping the Earth in the LM window (inaccurate, but hair-raising nevertheless) but in reality they used the Sun as their navigating star and did so very precisely. This burn sped up the return trip by 9 hours. 3) and 4) were minor midcourse corrections and are less notable. Apollo 13 had one of the higher reentry velocities at 35,837 feet per second. Apollo 10 still holds the record at 36,397 feet per second, which also makes them the fastest people so far.

[@Surrenitie]

@@efulmer8675 Thats very interesting. Thanks for sharing!

[@gogamarra]

Great, but Gordo was denied an Apollo Moon landing because of his lackluster performance and bad judgement calls. Deke stated this in his autobiography.

[@ScootrRichards]

I found out about the turtle club in high school. I told my mom about it, just as an interesting item, and she seemed to know all about it (my dad was USAF). Wait a minute - are YOU a turtle? My dear sweet mum who never said a bad word, said

[@MAGGOT_VOMIT]

Awesome!!

[@winstoncrew7183]

You guys earn that smashed like button every time.

[@GeorgeLiquor]

Thank God we discussed the failure of Cooper's marriage. Couldn't have tied everything together without that detail

[@marki7040]

As great as the original Right Stuff movie was, omitting Cooper's manual re-entry missed a chance to illustrate Tom Wolfe's theme of the astronauts establishing themselves as pilots who were more than spam in a can!

[@ferociousgumby]

I was shocked at this. I love the movie, but I don't remember anything about Cooper except he had this over-the-top astronaut smile. But they made much of Chuck Yeager touching the stars.

[@millergdonald]

I kinda feel like we blew over the fact this man manually guided a can tumbling in space back to earth. Tough men.

[@gnaskar]

Getting down is easy. Getting down in one piece is hard. Getting down close to your LZ without instruments is harder.

[@abcde_fz]

"Close Encounters of the Turd Kind." Good one, Simon. I rarely laugh out load watching videos, but you got me there.

[@OttoByOgraffey]

"Load"

[@abcde_fz]

@@OttoByOgraffey I know. It was an honest typo I couldn't believe I made, since "u" and "a" are nowhere near each other, but once I saw it, I started laughing all over again and decided to leave it as written.

[@hubbsllc]

That's the "24 Hours of Daytona," not "Dayton." Race is held every year to this day and generally opens the US motorsport season.

[@donwilbanks2226]

I grew up in Shawnee, OK. There is a technical college named after him there. I studied electronics there for my junior & senior years in high school.

[@donwilbanks2226]

Gordon Cooper is from my home town, Shawnee, OK. I studied electronics in high school at a vo-tech named after him.

[@bobthompson4319]

YA GORDO he's my favorite astronaut sadly he was in Apollo 1 fire and it took his life unfortunately. The great Gordan Gordo Cooper you are missed.

[@paulamarentette695]

Gordon Cooper wasn't in the Apollo I fire. The three astronauts were Grissom, Chaffee and White.

[@harveywallbanger3123]

Smoke less drugs. Use more Wikipedia.

[@Kroggnagch]

Yes, computers and technology are all wonderful, when they work. Coopers reentry and precision landing BY EYE AND TIME ALONE when the electronics failed is surely a testament to the pioneers of the time. It must’ve been so cool to grow up in America’s prime living the life he did.

[@bearb1asting]

An absolute legend.

[@Mr.E723]

The movie “The Right Stuff” shouldn’t have ended with Gordo Cooper launching for space, it should have ended with him splashing down

[@mikeyoung9810]

I always loved Yeager's description of astronauts being "spam in a can".

[@erictaylor5462]

Gordo had left something for Shepherd in Shepherd's flight. A sign that read, "No handball playing in this area."

[@sventer198]

This is incredible! What a flyer.

[@garymcaleer6112]

Amazing, the daring of men.

[@tedphillips2501]

Simon, you keep getting better. Thanks.

[@relativityboy]

Great vid. Thanks to all four of you!

[@johngalt2506]

Every one of those Mercury Seven Astronauts knew that the best pilot they ever saw was Chuck Yeager.

[@chrismaverick9828]

Yeager flew with Neil Armstrong in the latter's X-15 test days. Story goes that he and Armstrong took a plane up to look for landing areas in the desert outside of Edwards, and Armstrong's choice was a strip that Yeager knew was "soft" from the previous rains and environmental conditions. Adamant about its viability, Armstrong accepted Yeager's challenge to set their plane down there. It sunk up to the struts in the hidden mud. This likely shaped Armstrong into a somewhat more humble and careful pilot as he matured through Gemini and Apollo missions.

[@philmenzies2477]

@@chrismaverick9828 I call BS on this. The forces when landing, (if the strip was soft enough to sink "up to the struts") would have nose dived the aircraft and likely killed both pilots. Maybe the outfield was soft and sunk the aircraft while taxiing but no way was the strip that soft

[@AbuctingTacos]

@@chrismaverick9828 Yeager never touched an x15 in his life, there is only 1 seat for obvious reasons, and landing it in mud would have killed them easily. Why make up this story? What do you gain from it?

[@jacobcastro1885]

@@AbuctingTacos he didn't say they flew together in an x-15. Probably a t-33.

[@jacobcastro1885]

@@chrismaverick9828 check it out. Chuck and Neil have 2 slightly different versions of the story, but it did happen.

[@thescho7744]

Simon is officially the DJ Khaled of KZbin channels: "Another one!"

[@JugSouthgate]

Did not mention that Gordo fell asleep in the MA-9 capsule while awaiting launch.

[@WillowTDog]

That's great.

[@keithjackson4985]

After watching this, I laughed out loud, in amazement! 😆😂😄. Incredible!

[@oleran4569]

Oh my. So incredibly cool, I don't feel qualified to watch.

[@pedrodiaz5540]

The greatest of the original 7, Leroy Gordon Cooper !

[@felicitybywater8012]

I had heard of Cooper as a young child who watched the eagle land live on TV. I knew he'd done something special but I didn't know what it was. Now I do.

[@millenniumtree]

Gordon Cooper: the first Kerbal.

[@wrightmf]

Loved the use of the quote from the movie to sum up Cooper's Mercury flight.

[@raymondcasso7966]

He used the force

[@Odin029]

I saw this video on my suggested videos and didn't click on it right away then I closed the browser. It took me 3 days of searching through Simon's various channels to find it.

[@cody4925]

I know there’s a lot of shit going on in this country, and we have a lot of work to do, but stuff like this makes me happy to be an American 🇺🇸

[@edwardpate6128]

Trudy Cooper was something of a pilot herself.

[@TheEvilCommenter]

Good video 👍

[@mrautistic2580]

Hallelujah!! Safe splash!!!

[@mr88cet]

Great video, thanks! 2:32 - Just a way-minor nitpick: “Capsule Communicator,” rather than a “Capsule Commander.” That’s the astronaut on the ground who communicates with the astronaut in the “capsule.” 5:18 - Oh wow, I wasn’t aware the Cooper didn’t smoke. Today I Found Out! (Wait, wrong Simon Whistler channel…)

[@Hiperruimteindustriee]

"Almost didn't get the mission due to buzzing a building." Jeb?! Is that you?

[@michman2]

I never knew why "turtle...." was asked. Classic.

[@maxesfuerzo3573]

Never heard about this... Thanks, Simon!

[@ronpatriot6679]

Simon Strikes Again! Yet another watch worthy channel!

[@Vegasprimetime]

Never forget about Gordos great great great great grandson Joesph Cooper who will birth a daughter and together they will save the human race from extinction.

[@crakkbone]

Yay! Thanks Simon. You jag.

[@padders1068]

Great video, very well explained & with some humorous anecdotes!

[@IshijimaKairo]

Remember: It is better to do things yourself, than to not do them at all.

[@pamelamays4186]

A little Blaze: Close encounter of the turd kind. BA-DA-DA-DA-BOOM-BOOM- TISSSSSSS!

[@crazyeyez1502]

#ogbblegend #bblegend

[@joseph-mariopelerin7028]

why ''tisssss' at the end?

[@yoremothra9838]

@@joseph-mariopelerin7028 The "tiss" was the only part that made sense, I mean, "ba dum, tisss" would have sufficed.

[@duneideannaer5990]

@@yoremothra9838 or since it was a turd bada boom pisssssssss.......(add plops if needed)

[@Mozart1220]

@@yoremothra9838 That is the accepted text yes. LOL I thought of the old Carmac skit from Johnny Carson... "Sis Boom Bah" The sound of a sheep exploding.

[@markdavis2475]

I sat in a replica Mercury capsule at KSC, its TINY!

[@okeydokey3120]

Thank you! That was rather fun. 😊

[@jeffreymelton2200]

Great Video! taht Turd pun was the shit!

[@RRaquello]

Point of trivia: while Cooper was the last American to be launched into solo orbit around the earth, he wasn't the last American to orbit the earth solo. That was Dave Scott on Apollo 9, during the test of the LM, when James McDivitt & Rusty Schweikart took the LM on its test flight, it left Scott alone in the CM.

[@JeffKlavir]

I saw the Faith 7 capsule last week at Johnson space center. Wish I saw this video before then.

[@o.t.n_ofthenightproduction1952]

"fuck it we'll do it live!"

[@Stormblade_999]

What the heck? Everyday i keep finding new Simon channels 😂😂😂

[@safespacebear]

Legend