Powers was born August 22, 1922, to
Welsh immigrant parents in
Toledo, Ohio. Powers father's last name was actually Power, however, upon signing the immigration documents, Power became Powers. When Powers was an infant his family moved to
Downers Grove, Illinois, where he was a cheerleader at Downers Grove High School (currently
Downers Grove North High School, but at that time there was only one public high school), from which he graduated in 1941. After graduation, he enlisted in the
U.S. Army Air Corps in 1942 and became a
C-46 and
C-47 pilot with the
349th Troop Carrier Group. He was one of six pilots who volunteered to learn the technique of snatching fully loaded
troop gliders off the ground, and spent the end of
World War II ferrying gasoline in cargo planes to Gen. George Patton's command in
Germany. Very early on April 12, 1961, John G. Warner, a
UPI rewrite-man in
Washington, D.C., roused Powers from sleep at
Langley Research Center in
Hampton, Virginia seeking comment on
the flight of
Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space. Powers replied, in part, "We're all asleep down here," which made headlines. He served as mission commentator for the six crewed
Mercury flights, introducing "
A-OK" into the American vocabulary to signify procedures during the missions had proceeded as planned. He claimed astronaut
Alan Shepard first used the expression during his
Freedom 7 flight, but communication transcripts later showed he had not. In his 1979 book
The Right Stuff,
Tom Wolfe wrote that Powers had borrowed it "from NASA engineers who used it during radio transmission tests because the sharper sound of
A cut through the static better than
O". Powers enjoyed the limelight, and was accused of scheduling news conferences so he could appear live on national television and occasionally twisting the facts. For example, he told reporters the day before
Gus Grissom's flight that the astronaut had gone fishing that day and had cooked and eaten his catch, which would have violated his pre-flight diet. He was succeeded by
Paul Haney on September 1, and Powers soon resigned.
Later years Powers retired from the Air Force in 1964 and opened a public relations firm in
Houston. He became part owner of
KMSC-FM in Clear Lake, Texas (the call letters standing for the Manned Spacecraft Center), where he anchored live coverage of
Gemini and
Apollo flights, distributed to radio stations across the country. He also served a spokesman for products including the 1965
Oldsmobile Delta 88 (touting its "Super Rocket V-8" engine),
Carrier air conditioners, Triptone motion sickness pills, and
Tareyton cigarettes (which claimed to use the same charcoal-activated filter used for the astronauts' oxygen supply). He lectured extensively about the space program, and served as emcee at the dedication of the
Clear Lake Theatre Time Capsule on April 20, 1966. In 1967, he authored a newspaper column syndicated nationally by
Field Enterprises called "Space Talk", answering readers' questions. Powers was married three times and was the father of three children. He married Sara Kay McSherry, women's editor of the
Indianapolis News, on August 7, 1965. Powers moved to
Phoenix, Arizona in 1978, and died there at his home on December 31, 1979, at age 57 from a
gastrointestinal hemorrhage related to chronic
alcoholism. ==Film and TV==