John Glenn

:This article is about the astronaut. For the English film director, see John Glen.

NASA career

In 1959 Glenn joined the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as one of the original group of Mercury astronauts for the Project Mercury. He piloted the first American manned orbital mission aboard Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962. After completing three orbits, the "Mercury Atlas 6" mission, lasting 4 hours, 55 minutes, and 23 seconds, Glenn was celebrated as a national hero, and received a ticker-tape parade reminiscent of Lindbergh. His fame and political gifts were noted by the Kennedys, and he became a personal friend of the Kennedy family; after the assassination of JFK, Jackie Kennedy asked Glenn to give the news to the Kennedy children on November 22, 1963.

Related Topics:
1959 - National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) - Mercury astronauts - Project Mercury - February 20 - 1962 - Mercury Atlas 6 - Hero - Ticker-tape parade - Lindbergh - Kennedy family - Jackie Kennedy - November 22 - 1963

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Glenn resigned from NASA six weeks after the Kennedy assassination to run for office in his home state of Ohio. In 1965 Glenn resigned his commission with the USMC and entered the business world as an executive for Royal Crown Cola. He reentered the world of politics later on. Some accounts of Glenn's years at NASA suggest that Glenn was prevented from flying in Gemini or Apollo missions, either by President John F. Kennedy himself or by NASA management. Yet Glenn resigned from the astronaut corps on January 30, 1964, well before even the first Gemini crew was assigned.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Glenn lifted off for a second space flight on October 29, 1998, on Space Shuttle Discovery's STS-95 in order to study the effects of space flight on the elderly. At age 77, Glenn became the oldest person ever to go into space. Glenn's participation in the nine-day mission was criticized by some in the space community as a junket for a politician. Others noted that Glenn's flight offered valuable research on weightlessness and other aspects of space flight on the same person at two points in life thirty-five years apart--by far the farthest interval between space flights by the same person. Upon the safe return of the STS-95 crew, Glenn (and his crewmates) received another ticker-tape parade, making him the ninth (and, as of 2004, final) person to have ever received multiple ticker-tape parades in his lifetime (as opposed to that of a sports team).

Related Topics:
October 29 - 1998 - Space Shuttle - ''Discovery'' - STS-95 - As of 2004 - Sports

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The NASA John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field in Cleveland, Ohio, is named after him.

Related Topics:
NASA John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field - Cleveland, Ohio

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~