Richard Gordon

Astronaut Richard Gordon was born October 5th, 1929 in Seattle, Washington. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from the University of Washington in 1951. Gordon then received his wings as a naval aviator in 1953 and in 1957 attended the Navy's Test Pilot School in Maryland. There, he served as a flight test pilot until 1960.

On September 12th, 1966, Gordon served as pilot for the 3-day Gemini 11 mission. He executed docking maneuvers and performed two periods of extravehicular activity. For Apollo 12 moon landing mission in 1969, Gordon was the command module pilot with commander Charles Conrad and lunar module pilot Alan Bean. Throughout the 31-hour lunar surface stay by Conrad and Bean, Gordon remained in lunar orbit aboard the command module where he photographically mapped tentative landing sites for future missions.