A Brief History
On October 29, 1998, former fighter pilot, test pilot, pioneering astronaut and US Senator from Ohio, John Glenn, blasted off aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery, becoming the oldest person at age 77 to go into space. And he was an actively sitting US Senator at the time!
Digging Deeper
Despite John Glenn’s long, varied, and illustrious career, he is best remembered as the first American to orbit the Earth, when he took three laps around the planet in his Mercury 7 space capsule in 1962. Glenn had been a US Marine Corps fighter pilot in World War II and flew 59 combat missions against the Japanese in his F4U Corsair. During the Korean War Glenn switched to the F9F Panther Jet and flew another 63 combat missions, twice returning with over 250 bullet holes in his plane! In Korea Glenn flew some missions with baseball legend Ted Williams as his wingman. This man of many talents then flew 27 more combat missions with the US Air Force in an exchange program, flying the F-86 Sabre, shooting down 3 enemy jet fighters.
Glenn followed his combat flying career with a switch to being a test pilot, a dangerous job for only the finest and bravest pilots. When the US entered the Space Race with the Soviet Union, Glenn became one of the 7 men chosen to be the first US astronauts. Glenn has the distinction of being the first person to fly across the entire US mainland at supersonic speed when he accomplished the feat in an F8U Crusader fighter plane.
Contrary to common misunderstanding, John Glenn was not the first man into space (he was the 5th man into space, Yuri Gagarin was the first), he was also not even the first American into space (that was Alan Shepard, Glenn was third) and he certainly was not the first man on the moon (that was Neil Armstrong). Still, Glenn became in instant national hero and even was befriended by President John F. Kennedy and the Kennedy family. Glenn would later enter politics as a Democrat and become a Senator from Ohio and a presidential candidate. Between the military and political careers, Glenn even served as an executive for Royal Crown Cola.
Many schools, streets and other facilities are named for this great American, notably the Columbus, Ohio airport, which was renamed in Glenn’s honor in 2016. John Glenn is now 95 years old, a living legend of aviation and space exploration.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Kramer, Barbara. John Glenn: A Space Biography (Countdown to Space). Enslow Pub Inc, 1998.