2-860-753 - Heritage Space/Heritage Images

Navy frogmen swim to spacecraft to begin retrieval, Pacific Ocean, 1963. U.S. Navy frogman, deployed from the hovering helicopter, swims next to the spacecraft and makes contact with astronaut L. Gordon Cooper inside, as his fellow team members bring up the floatation gear to be attached to the spacecraft. The main chute floats at top left, and the ejected reserve chute floats at the lower right of the spacecraft in the green dye area. Cooper piloted the longest and last Mercury spaceflight, Mercury-Atlas 9. During the 34-hour mission he became the first American to spend an entire day in space, the first to sleep in space, and the last American launched on an entirely solo orbital mission.