Criticism of choice

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32524, 6 February 1971, Page 1

Criticism of choice

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copyright) LONDON, Feb. 5. A former United States astronaut, Gordon Cooper, yesterday criticised the selection of Alan B. Shepard as skipper of the Apollo 14 lunar mission which some had thought Cooper would command.

Cooper, who is aged 43, reacted sharply to suggestions during a news conference that he had left the space programme shortly after Shepard, aged 47, was named to command the Apollo 14 mission because he thought that Shepard had passed his prime as an astronaut.

“I’m considerably younger than Shepard,” Cooper said. “I’m still in good physical

condition. I would rather not speak too much about Captain Shepard. I have my own feelings about him.” But Cooper said: “I don't feel that a man who is not fully qualified to fly an aircraft without having a copilot, and who has various physical problems, really should ‘bump’ (replace) more qualified people.” Shepard, a Navy pilot, was grounded in 1963 by an ear disorder until space physicians cleared him to resume space-flights and solo aircraft flights to 1969 after he under-

went surgery. He and Cooper were the only two of the original seven Mercury space pioneers who qualified to fly to the moon. Cooper joined Dr Eugene Shoemaker, former chief geologist of the United States space program, in criticising aspects of the programme. Dr Shoemaker, now professor of astronomy at the California Institute of Technology said that the administrators of the United States space programme had done a “completely miserable job” in what he said was their “failure to pursue any meaningful scientific goals.” Dr Shoemaker said that he and most scientific-astronauts

left the programme because of its failure to “do something serious and worthwhile to space.”

“It’s unlikely that any scientist-astronaut will ever fly to the moon,” he said. Cooper, whose last space trip was as commander of the eight-day earth-orbiting Gemini 5 mission to 1965, said that one of the reasons why he left the space programme was the “politics” involved to getting on space missions. “There has been a lot of empire building and politics going on that I don’t believe should exist in the space programme,” he said. "I would like to have done a lunar flight, but I’m not going to compromise my belief that a person should be fully dedicated to the programme beyond his own personal ambitions.”