Richard F. Gordon Jr.

• 1. Introduction

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  Richard Francis Gordon Jr. was born in Seattle, Washington, on the 5th of October 1929, and he died 88 years later having orbited the Moon 45 times. Most people who know the Apollo program can name the men who walked on the lunar surface. Gordon was not one of them. He circled above, alone, while his crewmates Pete Conrad and Alan Bean stepped out onto the Ocean of Storms below. What keeps a person flying for decades - through test flights, spacewalks, and that solitary lunar orbit - only to then become an oil industry executive and a football club vice president? That question runs through the whole of Gordon's life, and it starts long before he ever left the atmosphere.

• 2. Wings and Speed Records

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  Gordon received his wings as a Naval Aviator in 1953 and spent the following years building one of the most varied flying records in the Navy. By the time he left active test pilot duty in 1960, he had flown the F-8U Crusader, the F-11F Tiger, the North American FJ Fury, and the A-4D Skyhawk. He was also the first project test pilot for the F4H-1 Phantom II, the aircraft that would define carrier aviation for a generation. That intimacy with the Phantom II carried forward: Gordon later served as a flight instructor in the aircraft at Naval Air Station Miramar, California, and helped introduce it to both the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets. He logged more than 4,500 hours of total flying time, with 3,500 of those hours in jet aircraft. In May 1961, flying an F4H-1 from Los Angeles to New York City, Gordon won the Bendix Trophy race. His speed across that run averaged 869.74 miles per hour, and he completed the transcontinental crossing in 2 hours and 47 minutes - a new record for the route.

• 3. Into Space with Gemini

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  NASA named Gordon to its third astronaut group in October 1963, where he was noted as the oldest member of that selection. He had already been a finalist for the second group in 1962. His first spaceflight came in September 1966 aboard Gemini 11, piloting the mission alongside Pete Conrad. Conrad was not a stranger - the two had been roommates on an aircraft carrier. That friendship would hold across two spacecraft over several years. The Gemini 11 flight set an altitude record of 1,369 kilometers. Gordon performed two spacewalks during the mission. One involved attaching a tether to the Agena target vehicle; the other required retrieving a nuclear emulsion experiment package from outside the spacecraft. Both tasks were physically demanding in the pressurized suit, and both were completed.

• 4. Apollo 12 and Lunar Orbit

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  In November 1969, Gordon flew as command module pilot of Apollo 12, the second crewed mission to land on the Moon. Conrad and Alan Bean descended to the surface. Gordon stayed aboard the command module, which was named Yankee Clipper, and orbited the Moon 45 times. While in orbit, he photographed candidate landing sites for missions that had not yet flown. He had been assigned as backup command module pilot for Apollo 9 before that flight, and after Apollo 12 he served as backup commander of Apollo 15. The mission he was slated to command himself - Apollo 18 - was canceled because of budget cuts. Gordon had been scheduled to walk on the Moon as its commander. By the time he retired from NASA and the Navy in January 1972, he had logged 315 hours and 53 minutes in space, of which 2 hours and 41 minutes were spent in extravehicular activity.

• 5. Life After the Astronaut Office

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  Gordon spent the years between 1972 and 1976 as executive vice president of the New Orleans Saints Professional Football Club in the National Football League. From there he moved through a sequence of private-sector roles: general manager of Energy Developers, Limited, a Texas energy partnership, in 1977; president of Resolution Engineering and Development Company in 1978, which focused on wild oil well control and firefighting equipment for large offshore vessels; and vice president of marketing for Westdale, an oil well servicing subsidiary, by 1980. In March 1982 he became president of Astro Sciences Corporation, a company providing engineering, project management, and hardware and software design for control room applications. That same summer of 1984, he served as a technical advisor for the CBS miniseries Space, based on James A. Michener's novel, and appeared on screen playing the role of Capcom. He also served as chairman of the Louisiana Heart Fund and as chairman of the March of Dimes Mother's March, and sat on the boards of the Boy Scouts of America and the Boys' Club of Greater New Orleans.

• 6. Recognition

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  Gordon's awards included two Navy Distinguished Flying Crosses, the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, the Bendix Trophy he won in 1961, the Godfrey L. Cabot Award in 1970, and the Rear Admiral William S. Parsons Award for Scientific and Technical Progress, also in 1970. In 1982 he was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame alongside nine of his Gemini astronaut colleagues. He was inducted into the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame on the 19th of March 1993. In 2020, three years after his death, he was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio. An elementary school in Kingston, Washington, carries his name. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.