Gordon, Richard Francis, Jr. (1929-2017), was a United States astronaut from 1963 to 1971. He was a crewman on the Apollo 12 space mission in November 1969. That mission made the second landing of astronauts on the moon. Gordon piloted the command module as it circled the moon 44 times. The other crew members—Alan L. Bean and Charles Conrad, Jr.—landed on the moon in the lunar module. Gordon performed the final maneuvers that linked the lunar module with the command module.
Gordon was born in Seattle. He graduated from the University of Washington in 1951 and later joined the Navy. In 1961, as a Navy test pilot, he flew across the United States in a record time of 2 hours 47 minutes. In 1963, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) selected Gordon to be an astronaut. Before the Apollo 12 mission, Gordon piloted the Gemini 11 space flight of 1966. In 1971, he retired from the astronaut program and the Navy. He served as an executive vice president of the New Orleans Saints football team from 1972 to 1976. After leaving the Saints in 1977, Gordon held executive positions in various scientific corporations. He died on Nov. 6, 2017.
