Friendship 7 and John Glenn

Hey everyone,

Glenn is the third American to travel to space, but he is the first orbit the Earth. He joined the military after the attack on Pearl Harbor and began flying missions. He would continue to fly and train pilots for the military until he entered the history books by completing the first supersonic transcontinental flight on July 16, 1957. In 1959, he was selected as one of the Mercury 7 astronauts. Glenn was the backup crew for Shepard during his historic flight and finally flew the third mission on Friendship 7. On February 20, 1962, Glenn successfully entered orbit and completed three periods around the Earth. There was some worry that his heat shield would fail upon re-entry, but it held. Glenn splashed down with no problems. After a ticker tape parade, he was hailed as a national hero and many forgot about Shepard and Grissom. However, Glenn retired from NASA in early 1964 soon after the assignation of John F. Kennedy. There was also a rumor that Kennedy made sure that Glenn would not fly into outer space again because of his standing as a national hero. After leaving NASA, Glenn focused on politics but didn't win a seat until 1974 when he became a senator from Ohio. Glenn would journey into space one more time at the age of 77 in 1998. Again, he would enter the history books as the oldest person to go to outer space. His trip provided data on how the elderly could handle the impact of space even though some criticized it as political, but Glenn would retire from politics in the following year. Glenn made an historic flight, but their were many more to come.