Richard Francis Gordon Jr. (October 5, 1929 – November 6, 2017) was an American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, NASA astronaut, and an American football executive. He was one of 24 people to have flown to the Moon, as the command module pilot of the 1969 Apollo 12 mission which orbited the Moon 45 times. Prior to his lunar flight, Gordon had flown in space as the pilot of the 1966 Gemini 11 mission.
An astronaut (or cosmonaut) is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft.
Although generally reserved for professional space travelers, the terms are sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists, and tourists.