Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Gordon Cooper/archive1
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- The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.
The article was promoted by Gog the Mild via FACBot (talk) 16:21 9 December 2025 FACBot (talk) 23:00, 9 December 2025 (UTC).
Gordon Cooper
- Nominator(s): Hawkeye7 (discuss) and QuicksmartTortoise513 (talk) 01:17, 30 September 2025 (UTC)
This article is about Gordon Cooper, one of the Mercury Seven astronauts. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:17, 30 September 2025 (UTC)
MSincccc
- Early life and education
- “the only child of Leroy Gordon Cooper Sr. and his wife, Hattie Lee Herd” – fine, but “his wife” could be dropped; “Hattie Lee Herd” is sufficient.
- "Pacific theater" → "Pacific Theater"
MSincccc (talk) 13:30, 21 October 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks for commenting! I have capitalised "Pacific Theater". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:26, 22 October 2025 (UTC)
- Later life
- Links made. QuicksmartTortoise513 (talk) 16:26, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
- UFO sightings
- You could mention the full form of "NASA" at least once in the article.
- Introduce "Bruce Henderson" briefly?
- “ground breaking technology” → “groundbreaking technology” (compound adjective).
MSincccc (talk) 13:59, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
- Full form written. I'm not sure what you mean by introducing Bruce Henderson. Also, where's the term "ground breaking technology" used? QuicksmartTortoise513 (talk) 21:03, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
- By introducing Henderson, I meant specifying his role in the article — as "the author" or the "journalist".
- ...understanding how someone so connected with ground breaking technology and science...
- MSincccc (talk) 03:36, 25 October 2025 (UTC)
- MOS:SIC: Quotations must be verifiably attributed, and the wording of the quoted text must be faithfully reproduced. Two words in the source Changed to a single word. We will see if anyone complains. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 04:37, 25 October 2025 (UTC)
- General
- Reference no. 81 – The access date precedes the article’s publication date.
“He believed these anomalies may be the locations…” mixes “may be” with past tense (“he believed”). It might read more clearly as “might have been”.
- Overall, the article is well written. Looking forward to your response. MSincccc (talk) 10:33, 25 October 2025 (UTC)
- @Hawkeye7 and @QuicksmartTortoise513 Two more comments above, but the article is good and hence support the nomination. MSincccc (talk) 03:39, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
- Corrected ref #81, which was a duplicate of #71. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:59, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
- Hi MSincccc, is there more to come from you on this? Gog the Mild (talk) 16:54, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
- @Gog the Mild Sorry, I had forgotten to make my declaration.
- @Hawkeye7 and @QuicksmartTortoise513 Support and good luck with your nomination. MSincccc (talk) 17:37, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
- Hi MSincccc, is there more to come from you on this? Gog the Mild (talk) 16:54, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
- Corrected ref #81, which was a duplicate of #71. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:59, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
- @Hawkeye7 and @QuicksmartTortoise513 Two more comments above, but the article is good and hence support the nomination. MSincccc (talk) 03:39, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
Coordinator comment
Three weeks in and this has gained little attention. Unless this nomination makes significant further progress towards a consensus to promote over the next three or four days I am afraid that it is liable to be archived. Gog the Mild (talk) 14:49, 21 October 2025 (UTC)
Support by Wehwalt
Support: Just a few things.
- Do we really need so much material on Cooper Sr.?
- "senior high school year" "senior year in high school" feels more natural in Among.
- "he played halfback in the state football championship." I might phrase as "he played halfback, and his team played in the state football championship."
- The UFO section is as long as the section on his Apollo involvement.
- The Apollo section would have been longer if he had actually flown. I did cut back the UFO nonsense. Leap of Faith contains a lot more. In later life, Cooper enjoyed being a celebrity to the UFO movement. An astonishingly large percentage of Americans believe that aliens visit Earth. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:32, 25 October 2025 (UTC)
- Didn't Cooper give a ticked-off press conference upon his non selection for Apollo 13/14?
Comments from Mike Christie
- No problem if the source doesn't specify, but "He unofficially soloed when he was 12 years old" is interesting -- do we know if he just took the plane up without anyone's permission at all?
- His father let him fly the plane. Set him up with cushions so he could see out the windows and blocks on the pedals.
Added a bit more about this. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:05, 24 October 2025 (UTC)By the time I was eight, with the help of blocks Dad built for the rudder pedals and lots of cushions so I could see out the window, I was allowed to take over the controls from the front seat with Dad behind me in the main cockpit... The head of the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) in that region of Oklahoma was a close friend of my father's (my mother and father seemed to know just about everybody in the area). He knew I was flying without a licence - I was a long way from sixteen, the mandatory age to get a licence - and never said a thing. By the time I was twelve I was flying solo, even though I had not yet had any formal lessons.
- His father let him fly the plane. Set him up with cushions so he could see out the windows and blocks on the pedals.
- Do we know why Marcus Cooper recommended that Cooper not volunteer for astronaut training?
- "I don't want my best pilots involved in some idiotic program." Added this.
- "however, this debacle did not make Cooper popular with senior NASA management": "debacle" seems a bit strong -- maybe just "incident"?
- Did Cooper buzz Hanger S because of the argument with Williams?
- Suggest retitling the "Later life" section, since some of it relates to his activities while still an astronaut. Perhaps "Other activities and later life"?
- Are date available for his involvement with GCR and Teletest?
- "The ashes were then launched on the Explorers orbital mission on August 3, 2008": suggest linking "Explorers" to Celestis#Flights.
- "The 2017 Discovery Channel docu-series Cooper's Treasure followed by Darrell Miklos as he searched through Cooper's files to discover the location of the suspected shipwrecks": something wrong with the syntax here -- a missing word?
- Suggest combining the last three short paragraphs.
Looks very good. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:04, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
Support. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:32, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
Source and image review
- https://history.nasa.gov/40thmerc7/cooper.htm is broken
- http://veterantributes.org/TributeDetail.php?recordID=70/ what makes this a reliable source?
- https://www.vintagehydroplanes.com/ what makes this a reliable source?
- It reproduces the Regatta brochure. I have a New York Times item ("Cooper, Wallace Take Boat Race". The New York Times. 2 January 1967. p. 30. Retrieved 30 October 2025.) but it does not mention Adair. If we had access to newspapers.com, we could use these. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:50, 30 October 2025 (UTC)
- Maybe the folks at WP:RX can help? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:22, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
- http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-082415a-gemini5-50th-8daysorbust.html, http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-052212b.html and http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-071700a.html what makes this a reliable source?
- collectSPACE is a highly regarded news source. It is used on hundreds of pages. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:50, 30 October 2025 (UTC)
- The New York Times is inconsistently linked.
- https://nmspacemuseum.org/halloffame/detail.php?id=53 is broken
- http://www.heavens-above.com/SatInfo.aspx?satid=38349&lat=0&lng=0&loc=Unspecified&alt=0&tz=UCT takes so long to load that I am not sure it actually works
- http://freemasoninformation.com/masonic-education/famous/masonic-astronauts/ is erroring out
- http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/coopers-treasure/about-coopers-treasure/ redirects to https://www.foodnetwork.com/not-available.html which doesn't work for non-US users
- Is "We Seven: By the Astronauts Themselves" used anywhere?
- I trust that "Public Domain This article incorporates public domain material from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration" is still referenced?
- Can I have some quotes supporting "His parents owned a Command-Aire 3C3 biplane, and he learned to fly at a young age. His father sat him on cushions so he could see and rigged the rudder pedals with blocks so he could reach them. He unofficially soloed when he was 12 years old, and earned his pilot certification in a Piper J-3 Cub when he was 16"?
- See the response to Mike Christie above. For the plane, "Dad bought a Commandaire biplane" (p. 102) Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:50, 30 October 2025 (UTC)
- I kinda wonder if we can rely on autobiographical/self-quotes for such a strong claim. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:21, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
Now about the files:
- File:Gordon Cooper 2.jpg one of the source links is broken.
- File:USAF Experimental Flight Test School Class 56D.jpg, File:Mercury Suit Gordon Cooper.jpg, File:Astro TrudyCooper daughters.jpg, File:Gemini5insignia.png, File:Cooper Mitchell Eisele.jpg, File:KSC-04pd1006~orig.jpg and File:Astronaut Gordon Cooper at Patrick Air Force Base for parade DVIDS687652.jpg have a bare URL as source, hard to repair in case of a failure.
- The images are on Commons. Presumably they have a bot that handles this. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:50, 30 October 2025 (UTC)
- In my experience, repairing such bare URLs isn't yet a bot job over in Commons. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:17, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
I can't see any ALT text anywhere. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:56, 30 October 2025 (UTC)
- Sigh. Added ALT text. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:50, 30 October 2025 (UTC)
- Hi Jo-Jo, is this good to go? Gog the Mild (talk) 16:56, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
- Some unanswered questions are still there, sorry. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 13:37, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
- I guess now it's fine, but I didn't double-check closely. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:07, 21 November 2025 (UTC)
- Some unanswered questions are still there, sorry. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 13:37, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
- Hi Jo-Jo, is this good to go? Gog the Mild (talk) 16:56, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
Drive-by comment
- Hacker and Grimwood (1977): I believe the OCLC is 643312314. Could it be added. Gog the Mild (talk) 22:43, 27 November 2025 (UTC)
RoySmith
I saw this was the topic of some hand-wringing at WT:FACC so I figured I'd give it a read. RoySmith (talk) 16:26, 4 December 2025 (UTC)
- I agree with Wehwalt that the material on Cooper Sr should be trimmed. I get that you want to show the aviation background, but you could certainly drop what vessel he served on and where he was stationed. "despite never having formal military pilot training" could go too. With a bit more copyediting, this could probably get down to close to half the original size with no loss of information that's relevant to Jr. By the time I got up to the 2nd paragraph, "Cooper attended ...", I had to double-check to make sure I understood which Cooper we were talking about.
- Trimmed as suggested. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:37, 4 December 2025 (UTC)
- Well, not really. The specific parts that I suggested were the most trimmable were "served on the presidential yacht USS Mayflower", "served in the Pacific Theater", and "stationed at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii Territory." as I felt these items were the least likely to aid the reader's understanding of how Jr's life was shaped by his father's experiences. I would have left the bit about flying a JN-4, as that seems directly related. I also would have left in the part about graduating from college and law school, as that explains how he got to be a state district judge. RoySmith (talk) 23:10, 5 December 2025 (UTC)
He was assigned to the Naval Academy Preparatory School as an alternate for an appointment to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, but the primary appointee was accepted, and Cooper was assigned to guard duty in Washington, D.C.
I'm confused by this. What does "the primary appointee was accepted" mean? Does that mean Cooper actually got into the USNA? And what does that have to do with guard duty?- Entry to the USNA is by appointment from a Congressman. Usually one is designated as the primary, but others are named as alternatives in case the primary fails the entrance examination, or decides to turn down the offer. Many fine officers have started their career as alternatives. Added "Not getting admitted to the USNA did not mean that he would be discharged from the Marine Corps". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:37, 4 December 2025 (UTC)
- You've still got "but the primary appointee was accepted" which I think most readers will be confused about. RoySmith (talk) 23:13, 5 December 2025 (UTC)
- He didn't get in; the principal appointee did. I have written: "in case the principal appointee failed the physical, medical or academic tests; but the principal appointee did not fail and was accepted." If the reader wants to know more about the appointment process, they can click on the link. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:40, 5 December 2025 (UTC)
- I'm still finding this section confusing. How about:
I think that hits all the important stuff and leaves out the extraneous bits about the principle appointee. RoySmith (talk) 02:15, 7 December 2025 (UTC)... World War II ended before he saw overseas service. He was assigned to the Naval Academy Preparatory School (NAPS) and was an alternate to the United States Naval Academy (USNA). After graduating from NAPS he was assigned to guard duty in Washington, D.C. and served with the Presidential Honor Guard when he was discharged in 1946.
- I have adopted your wording. For me, the important thing was this: If the congressman appoints a principal nominee, then as long as that candidate is physically, medically, and academically found qualified by the academy, he or she will be admitted, even if there are more qualified applicants. In other words, the reader should not assume that Gordo was not fully qualified, or even that he was not the most qualified candidate. I guess I'm just very familiar with the process. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:03, 7 December 2025 (UTC)
- I'm still finding this section confusing. How about:
- He didn't get in; the principal appointee did. I have written: "in case the principal appointee failed the physical, medical or academic tests; but the principal appointee did not fail and was accepted." If the reader wants to know more about the appointment process, they can click on the link. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:40, 5 December 2025 (UTC)
Cooper went to Hawaii to live with his parents
when did this happen?
- You keep talking about pilot certification. It is true that the document is officially called a "pilot certificate" (I have one of my own) but people universally call it a "pilot license". By analogy to WP:COMMONNAME, I think calling it a license here would make for a better reader experience.
and the aircraft skidded erratically
is there any other way to skid? In any case, change this "and" into a comma.
After General Motors executive Ed Cole ... ongoing marketing campaign
Overly long and complicated sentence.
Cooper was designated for the next mission
next after what? I'm guessing MA-8, but you have to go back to the previous section to figure that out, so give a bit more context here.
part from the grounded Slayton, he was the only one of the Mercury Seven
This is the first time you mention anything about Slayton being grounded, so needs some context.- Added that it was with an idiopathic atrial fibrillation Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:37, 4 December 2025 (UTC)
Because MA-9 would orbit over nearly every part of Earth ...
I think what you're saying here is that due to the large geographical footprint of the mission, NASA needed to stage recovery assets all over the globe. But I only know that because I understand how these things work; most readers won't have a clue, so you need to explain this better.
The clock and then the gyroscopes failed
Upon first read, I assumed these were individual failures of these units, but eventually I figured out that they both failed because they lost power due to the previously mentioned power failure. I didn't figure that out, however, until I got to the bit about the radio being directly connected to the clock. So this needs some better explanation.
MA-9 was designed for fully automatic control
was it automatic (as in "autonomous"), or "under ground control"? This should be clarified.
Gemini 5 was launched at 09:00 on August 21, 1965
Presumably EDT? You should specify.- EST. Added. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:37, 4 December 2025 (UTC)
- Wow, this is confusing. My first thought was "No, you idiot, I said EDT". Because it's summer, so daylight savings time would be in effect. But I dug a bit and apparently daylight savings time was kind of a nebulous concept in 1965 and some parts of Florida observed it and some didn't! https://www.nasa.gov/mission/gemini-v/ does indeed say "Aug. 21, 1965, 8:59:59 a.m. EST (13:59:59 UT)", but I'm wondering if it makes sense to just use UTC here, as Gemini 5 does, to bypass any possible confusion. RoySmith (talk) 23:35, 5 December 2025 (UTC)
- I did check it! Added UTC. But there was a big argument over whether UTC or EST should come first in the WikiProject Spaceflight articles. My understanding of the compromise was that local time is used for launches and landings in the US, and UTC everywhere else. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:16, 6 December 2025 (UTC)
a 163 by 349 kilometers (101 by 217 mi) orbit
I think you want the adjective=on flag to {{convert}} to get "kilometer" instead of "kilometers".
Cooper intended to operate it at a low pressure, but when it started to dip too low the Flight Controllers advised him to switch on the oxygen heater.
what does the oxygen heater have to do with the pressure in the fuel cell? That needs explaining.
It eventually stabilized at 49 newtons per square centimetre
Is that really the best unit to use here? It might be correct, but surely not familiar to most readers.
- In some places, you give imperial units first and convert to metric "traveling 3,312,993 miles (5,331,745 km)" in other places the other way around "49 newtons per square centimetre (71 psi)". Pick one way and be consistent.
Helicopters plucked them from the sea
does snooty FA formalism really condone the use of "plucked"?
Salton City 500 miles (800 km) boat race
again, adjective=on
In November 1964, Cooper entered the $28,000 Salton City ...
there's a whole paragraph here about various sorts of races, none of which appears to have anything to do with Project Apollo, which is what this section is about.- It is about why Cooper fell further out of favour with NASA management. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:37, 4 December 2025 (UTC)
- Maybe introduce the section with something like "By November 1964, Cooper was involved in several external activities which the NASA administration disapproved of", then go into the litany of the supposedly horrible things he did. RoySmith (talk) 23:42, 5 December 2025 (UTC)
co-authored with journalist and author Bruce Henderson
once you've told us he's a co-author, no eed to tell us he's an author.
Askania Cinetheodolite precision landing system
don't link Askania, it's just a redirect.- Deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:37, 4 December 2025 (UTC)
- I'm sure you noticed I made some edits here. But I have a question about "precision landing system". Does the source really call it that? My understanding of these things is that they're just cameras (with humongous lenses, on very fancy tracking mounts) used to document events. To me "landing system" means something that gives an aircraft guidance to the runway, and the word "precision" has a very specific meaning in this context, i.e. it provides vertical guidance in addition to horizontal guidance, the canonical example being the Instrument landing system or ILS. So could you take a look at the source and verify that wording? RoySmith (talk) 01:05, 6 December 2025 (UTC)
On May 3, 1957, I was a captain and had a crew out filming an Askania-camera precision landing system we had installed on the dry lake bed. The Askania automatic system took pictures — one frame per second — as a plane landed to measure its landing characteristics. The two cameramen, James Bittick and Jack Gettys, arrived at Askania number four site a little before 8 a.m., armed with still and motion picture cameras.
— Leap of Faith, p. 82
- Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:22, 6 December 2025 (UTC)
- Wow. It does indeed say that. I still didn't believe it, so I did some more digging and found https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0428384.pdf, which does indeed appear to describe a precision landing system using a pair of these tracking cameras to triangulate the aircraft's position in real time. I haven't yet figured out how this information is transmitted back to the aircraft so it can control its approach, but mind blown. I'd never heard of this system and it's astounding they could make this work with 1958 technology. So, yeah, the wording you've got is fine and I've got my work cut out for me to do some more research on this. RoySmith (talk) 02:07, 6 December 2025 (UTC)
- I've added this report to the article as a reference in case anyone else wants to know more. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:03, 7 December 2025 (UTC)
- This has been gnawing at me. Based on what I've been able to find (including asking ChatGPT and Claude to try and find stuff for me), I'm convinced that whoever wrote that quote you provided from Leap of Faith (Cooper, I guess) simply misspoke when they referred to the cinetheodolite as a precision landing system. A more likely explanation is that there was a precision landing system which was being evaluated, but the cinetheodolite was simply being used to document the performance of the landing system for later analysis. Looking at Appendix D ("Multiple Cine-Theodolite Position Reduction") of the AFFTC report, they talk about taking measurements off frames of film. There's no way this happened in real time.
- I suggest dropping the words "precision landing", and going with "he had a crew set up a Cinetheodolite system". For the purpose of this article, what's important is that the system was collecting photographic evidence which could be analyzed later to produce accurate position information. You can convey that without saying "precision landing" which I'm virtually certain is, despite your source using the term, incorrect. RoySmith (talk) 16:56, 7 December 2025 (UTC)
- I've added this report to the article as a reference in case anyone else wants to know more. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:03, 7 December 2025 (UTC)
using three extended landing gears
I'm pretty sure "gear" is its own plural, not "gears".
That's it for me. RoySmith (talk) 17:37, 4 December 2025 (UTC)
- OK, I made a few more minor copyedits. The only significant issue I still have is the section about his admission to NAPS for which I've suggested some alternate wording above. RoySmith (talk) 02:20, 7 December 2025 (UTC)
- Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:21, 9 December 2025 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.