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Interesting four-piece collection of typescript reports from the personal collection of NASA astronaut Gordon Cooper, documenting the development of Project Mercury astronaut training and Cooper’s later role as pilot of the historic Mercury-Atlas 9 mission, the final crewed space mission of the Mercury program, which launched on May 15, 1963. Each report bears Cooper’s signature or ownership notation, with statements including “My personal copy,” “From my NASA Mercury file,” “From my Mercury File,” and “From my personal files.” The earliest report outlines the Mercury astronaut training program in 1960, while the remaining three concern Cooper’s preparations for and experiences during MA-9, including pre-flight operations, post-flight training observations, and post-recovery debriefing.
The earliest report, entitled Project Mercury Astronaut Training Program, by Robert B. Voas of the NASA Space Task Group, was prepared for presentation at the Symposium on Psychophysiological Aspects of Space Flight in San Antonio, Texas, May 26–27, 1960. The 13-page report, 7.75 x 10.25, followed by additional illustrated pages, provides a general outline of the Mercury astronaut training program, describing six primary areas of in-flight training and the equipment and facilities developed to prepare the astronauts for launch, orbital operations, reentry, and recovery. The additional illustrated pages depict training equipment including the MB-3 fixed-base attitude-control simulator, ALFA dynamic simulator, Johnsville centrifuge, MASTIF simulator, and Mercury egress trainer.
The second report, headed "The following is a list of operational discrepancies by the pilot in the pre-flight activities preceding the launch of MA-9," five pages, 8 x 10.5, January 23, 1963, is annotated along the top, “My working draft. Corrected by Gordon Cooper.” The report features over 20 manuscript corrections and amendments by Cooper, as well as several pointed comments regarding the addition of a last-minute experiment: “This is absolutely ridiculous…It is my opinion that if a crew is going to fly a spacecraft and a Project Office is to run the Project, then there must be authority given to them to adhere to these cutoff dates.”
A third report, entitled “MA-9 Postflight Astronaut Training Report by Cooper,” nine pages, 8 x 10.5, lists the authors as “W. M. Schirra and L. G. Cooper," although the former’s name is struck through. Schirra, who adds an ANS to the title page (“Go ahead on this Gordo, I buy the whole thing but I think you can get a better audience than I know - Wally”), also makes a handful of corrections to the text in ballpoint. The report addresses pilot training via aircraft, engineering education, and physical training, and with an additional Cooper note in pencil at the bottom of the first page: “Redo para on gym to read - Funding has been approved, but apparently will not be available for approx. 1 year.”
The fourth is a “DRAFT” copy of a “Memorandum for Manager, Mercury Project Office,” with the subject “MA-9/20 Astronaut Engineering Debriefing,” and a reference line, “Memorandum for Distribution, Subject: Astronaut’s Post-Recovery Activities for MA-9,” 14 pages, 8.5 x 11, which contains a list of topics for Cooper's debriefing after the flight. In overall fine condition, with some trivial edgewear and rusty paperclip marks.
The grievances found throughout the MA-9 material paint a picture of Cooper’s growing displeasure with NASA protocol and offer insight into the tensions that marked his later NASA career and preceded his final spaceflight aboard Gemini 5.
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