Richard Gordon, astronaut, dies

Gemini and Apollo astronaut Richard “Dick” Gordon dies at the age of 88. A veteran of the record-setting Gemini 11 mission (during which he undertook a spacewalk at the unprecedented altitude of 850 miles above Earth’s surface) and the Apollo 12 mission (during which he manned the command module Yankee Clipper while crewmates Pete Conrad and Alan Bean walked on the moon), Gordon was a naval aviator who eventually graduated to test pilot duties, eventually specializing in the F4H Phantom II fighter and teaching other pilots how to fly it. After his Apollo flight and retirement from NASA, Gordon kept working in the technology and engineering industries, but also diversified, becoming Executive VP of the New Orleans Saints football team.

The Apollo 12 mission is dramatized in the That’s All There Is episode of HBO’s 1998 series From The Earth To The Moon.