Gordon, Richard Francis, Jr.

Born Oct. 5, 1929, in Seattle, Wash. American pilot and astronaut; officer in the navy.

Gordon graduated from the University of Washington in 1951 with a degree in chemistry. From 1953 he worked in the testing and meteorological branches of the navy. In 1963 he joined the group of astronauts of the American National Aeronautics and Space Administration. As copilot he completed the flight on Gemini 11 (Sept. 12 to Sept. 14, 1966) with C. Conrad. During 71 hours in orbit, Gemini II circled the globe 44 times, covering a distance of approximately 1.8 million km. Gordon made two space walks. From Nov. 14 to Nov. 24, 1969, he completed a flight to the moon (with C. Conrad and A. Bean) as pilot of the command module Apollo 12, in which he circled the moon 44 times.