1.
ELS of launches
0.04

2.
LS of rocket launch
0.09

3.
CU of rocket on launch
0.16

4.
MS of men & Cooper near hatch
0.20

5.
Cooper slipping into capsule
0.27

6.
CU of sign "Faith 7"
0.30

7.
Three shots of Cooper running on beach
0.46



Initials



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Astronaut L. Gordon Cooper makes a simulated space flight at Cape Canaveral, Florida, Sunday (May 12)... in preparation for his twenty-two-orbit trip around the earth Tuesday.

Space officials at Canaveral report all operations are in a "Go" condition. The weather picture is good. The gleaming Atlas booster rocket stands silently on Launch Pad Number Nine... ready to hurl Cooper more than one hundred miles into space between nine and eleven A.M., Eastern Daylight Time, on Tuesday. The 36-year-old Air Force Major met with space officials for three hours Saturday...checking his equipment and his "Faith Seven" capsule. Cooper will ride for thirty-four hours in the capsule...and hopefully transmit television pictures back to the ground. The pictures may be relayed to Europe by the Communication satellites Telstar and Relay.

The astronaut took time off away from the rocket Saturday...for a run along the Florida Beach. Then he returned for another detailed study of the flight plan. When Cooper descends to a recovery point in the Pacific Ocean...about one hundred miles southeast of Midway...he will have ended a flight almost four times as long as any other American astronaut, but still far short of the 3 & 4 day flights of 2 Russian astronauts last August.