(CNN) -- Leroy Gordon Cooper, one of the nation's first
astronauts who once set a space endurance record by traveling
more than 3.3 million miles aboard Gemini 5 in 1965, died on
Monday, NASA said. He was 77.

Cooper died at his home in Ventura, California.

"As one of the original seven Mercury astronauts, Gordon Cooper
was one of the faces of America's fledgling space program. He
truly portrayed the right stuff, and he helped gain the backing
and enthusiasm of the American public, so critical for the
spirit of exploration," NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said on
the space agency 's Web site.

<snip>

"I would have liked to have gone to the moon. I would have liked
to have been one of the crew that landed on the moon but it just
didn't work out that way. And I don't, I certainly don't harbor
any bitterness or anger."

In addition to his space flights, Cooper logged more than 7,000
hours flying time in jets and commercial aircraft. He retired
from the Air Force and NASA in 1970 with the rank of colonel.

After leaving NASA, Cooper served on the boards of directors as
a technical consultant to a number of companies in the
aerospace, electronics and energy fields. He also was the vice
president for research and development for Walter E. Disney
Enterprises Inc., from 1974-1980.

In his post-NASA career, Cooper became known as an outspoken
believer in UFOs and charged that the government was covering up
its knowledge of extraterrestrial activity.

"I believe that these extraterrestrial vehicles and their crews
are visiting this planet from other planets, which obviously are
a little more technically advanced than we are here on Earth,"
he told a United Nations panel in 1985.

"I feel that we need to have a top-level, coordinated program to
scientifically collect and analyze data from all over the Earth
concerning any type of encounter, and to determine how best to
interface with these visitors in a friendly fashion."

He added, "For many years I have lived with a secret, in a
secrecy imposed on all specialists and astronauts. I can now
reveal that every day, in the USA, our radar instruments capture
objects of form and composition unknown to us."

c. 2005 Cable News Network LP, LLLP.