Meeting history

While out on sea trials for the USNS WALLY SCHIRRA (TAKE-8) last week, I had a chance to meet Ms. Suzan Cooper (pictured below with noted sea trials mid-rats plunderer whose identity is being protected as a person of interest). Who is Ms. Suzan Cooper, you ask? She is the wife of Gordon Cooper who passed away here in San Diego just a couple of years ago. Well, who is Gordon Cooper, then? To be precise, it’s Colonel Gordon Cooper Jr., one of the original seven Mercury astronauts. Suzan was a guest of honor for the sea trials of the ship whose namesake was a mate of Cooper’s on the Mercury program.

Those of you who know me well, know that one of my favorite books is The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe and my absolute favorite movie is the same-named film adaptation of this book, so there was no way I was going to let this opportunity to meet Ms. Cooper go by the boards.
I cornered her in the chow line and we had a tremendous if brief exchange. She is a fantastic lady.

She shared some insights with me with respect to the movie:

It was generally agreed by all those close to the Mercury program that, although the film did a fantastic job in capturing the excitement and patriotism surrounding the Mercury program, it gave the short shrift to Lyndon Johnson and Mercury astronaut Gus Grissom.

There was a tremendous amount of controversy regarding Grissom’s mission because upon splash-down his hatch “blew” resulting in sea water entering, flooding and eventually sinking his capsule.

Grissom claimed the hatch “just blew” whereas the movie leaned towards the scenario that Grissom panicked and manually blew the hatch himself. Suzan intimated that the hand injuries experienced by two other Mercury astronauts that had manually blown their hatch were absent Grissom’s. Further, for someone that had allegedly screwed the pooch he flew many more missions for NASA’s space program.

I didn’t say anything to Suzan but I rather enjoyed the film’s depiction of Johnson.

“I, for one, do not inTEND to go to bed by the laht of a comoonist Moooon.”

I loved that line.


At the movie premiere attended by the astronauts and their wives:

Collective forehead-wiping relief expressed by the fellas after the movie as they were worried the movie would depict too much after hours “hank-panky” (Suzan’s words).


In the final scene of the movie, Cooper, at long last gets his shot at space flight. Background: Cooper’s running line throughout the movie to Suzan is, “Who’s the greatest pilot you ever saw, sweetie?” And after being pressed by reporters later on with the same question, Cooper lets his mind and words drift back to Edwards Air Force base and the image of Chuck Yeager and almost lets the mask slip. Cooper eventually rights the ship, snaps back to his own reality and informs the press, “You’re lookin’ at’im.”

In this scene, as Cooper is making his ascent into the heavens, the voiceover intones “for a brief moment, Gordo Cooper had become the greatest pilot anyone had ever seen.” Wally Schirra, who was sitting in front of Cooper and Suzan and who was intensely competitive with Cooper, whirled around in his seat and shouted, “but just for that one moment, Cooper!”

It was an honor and privilege to meet someone who was part of such an exciting time in our nation’s history.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled fraternal and collegial 2nd-person plural programming.