Right Stuff remains in equilibrium

Mercury Astronaut Gordon Cooper is dead. Famously the best fighter pilot he himself ever saw, Gordo's death leaves only three surviving Mercury program Astronauts: John Glenn, Wally Schirra and Scott Carpenter.

He cleverly arranged to die the same day that Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne made its second sub-orbital space flight, winning the Ansari X prize.