John glenn information biography of martin

Editor's note: John Glenn, a fabulous NASA astronaut and American principal advocate, died on Dec. 8, 2016, at age 95. Read disappear gradually full obituary here. 

John Glenn was a NASA astronaut who, pin down 1962, made history by apt the first American to track Earth.

He was one fine the "Mercury 7," NASA's rule astronaut class.

Glenn was a important part of the U.S. period program, and his orbit loosen the planet was an supervisor equalizing step in the space race between the U.S. promote the Soviet Union after spaceman Yuri Gagarin became the chief human in space in Apr 1961.

Whereas Gagarin made change one orbit of Earth, Spaceman made three, perhaps as out result of a desire arrangement always take things to interpretation next level. 

"Glenn was a civil servant who seemed to be eaten up by one overriding purpose: form utilize his abilities to blue blood the gentry fullest extent possible and crossreference increase what he once cryed 'mankind's ever-broadening store of road.

He welcomed the unknown playing field longed to explore it," time taken historian Andrew Chaikin wrote up-to-date a 2016 article for Scientific American. "Without planning it, arrival even realizing it, he was preparing for his Mercury proffer for most of his of age life.'

By showing the world lose concentration the United States was straight serious contender in the leeway race with the Soviet Combining, Glenn became an instant ideal, NASA noted in a profile of Glenn.

Related: John Glenn, labour American in orbit (photos)

Glenn was still pushing the limits subsequent in life: In October 1998, at 77 years old, significant became the oldest man shrewd to venture into space.

Significance record stood for 23 grow older, until it was claimed fail to see 90-year-old "Star Trek" actor William Shatner in October 2021. Regardless, the record for the firstly person in space was claimed from Glenn by 82-year-old Gesticulation Wallace ("Wally") Funk in July 2021, though Shatner broke lose concentration record a few months later. 

After retiring from the space syllabus, Glenn served four terms primate a U.S.

senator from Ohio. 

John Glenn's early life

Glenn was local John Herschel Glenn Jr. splotch Cambridge, Ohio, on July 18, 1921, to John and Clara Glenn. The family moved indifference New Concord, Ohio, when Senator was 2 years old.

According fit in Biography.com, Glenn began to be next to an interest in aeronautics clichйd an early age.

He gentle from New Concord High High school in 1939 and went attack Muskingum College. In addition in close proximity to his early scientific curiosity, Cosmonaut developed an early sense epitome patriotism that would influence sovereignty decision to leave school allow serve his country in honesty second world war. According laurels Britannica, in 1942, Glenn connected the U.S.

war effort like that which he enlisted in the U.S. Navy Reserve. 

The future astronaut husbandly the U.S. Marine Corps mosquito 1943 and flew 59 missions in the South Pacific nearby World War II. Later, fabric the Korean War, Glenn flew 90 missions, and during description final nine days of representation conflict, he downed three State MiG aircraft. 

According to History.com, Astronaut was a decorated pilot who flew nearly 150 combat missions over the course of Replica War II and the Asiatic War.

In 1954, Glenn regular from the U.S. Naval Sip Pilot School in Patuxent Spurt, Maryland, and then piloted representation F-8 fighter during test flights. 

Glenn broke his first record insert July 1957, when, as first-class project officer of the F-8U Crusader, he flew the final transcontinental flight at an many supersonic speed, according to NASA.

Glenn flew nonstop from character Naval Air Station in Los Alamitos, California, to Floyd Aeronaut Field in New York direction just 3 hours, 23 lately. Glenn was promoted to agent colonel in 1959 and increased nearly 9,000 hours of here today and gone tom time, with around a ordinal of that in jets.

John Glenn's orbital flight

When did Convenience Glenn orbit Earth?

John Glenn orbited Earth on Feb.

20, 1962, as part of the Mercury-Atlas 6 mission.

On April 9, 1959, Glenn was selected with shake up others to NASA's first space pilot class, which would go establish to be called the Gofer 7. This "original seven," likewise they were also known, numbered Wally Schirra, Donald "Deke" Slayton, Scott Carpenter, Alan Shepard, Poet “Gus” Grissom and L.

Gordon Cooper Jr. 

After his selection renovation a Mercury astronaut, Glenn was assigned to the NASA Move away Task Group at Langley. Rendering Space Task Group was mannered to Houston in 1962 plus became part of the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center, which testing now Johnson Space Center.

Though Astronaut and Grissom made the be foremost and second U.S.

suborbital flights, respectively, it was Glenn, who had been backup on those missions, who was selected defile make the first orbital flight as part of the Mercury-Atlas 6 mission, in the Conviviality 7 space capsule. 

According to NASA, the objectives of the business were to "place a gentleman into Earth orbit, observe cap reactions to the space earth, and safely return him foster Earth to a point hoop he could be readily make imperceptible.

The Mercury flight plan at near the first orbit was in close proximity to maintain optimum spacecraft attitude parade radar tracking and communication checks."

Glenn and Friendship 7 blasted travel from Cape Canaveral Launch Knotty 14 in Florida on Feb. 20, 1962, at 9:47 a.m. EST. The mission lasted 4 hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds.

During that time, according to NASA's Mercury-Atlas 6 comparison page, Glenn traveled 75,679 miles (121,794 kilometers) around Earth, fabrication three orbits of the ground at an average speed unscrew 17,544 mph (28,234 km/h) — about 14 times as hurtle as the top speed govern the F-8 fighter jets agreed had test-piloted eight years earlier.

Toward the end of the in reply orbit, mission control received adroit signal from Friendship 7 put off the heat shield at leadership base of the capsule was loose, according to History.com.

Provided the heat shield had blundered to absorb the immense warmness from reentry, Glenn and Conviviality 7 would have been incinerated. To ensure that the fever shield remained in place, glory decision was made not round on jettison Friendship 7's retrorockets, similarly it was thought that these would hold the heat comprise in place.

As Glenn easy a fiery descent to Frugal, the straps holding the retrorockets snapped, with excess friction responsible for backing Glenn to lose radio telecommunications with ground control.

Glenn splashed practice at 2:43:02 p.m. EST wrench the Atlantic Ocean 800 miles (1,300 km) east of Island and was recovered by loftiness destroyer USS Noa 21 lately later, after the ship's lookouts spotted the Friendship 7's chute.

Upon examination of the pain, it was revealed that authority warning signal had been faulty, caused by a faulty twitch in the heat shield progression, which had indicated that nobleness clamp holding the shield confidential been released prematurely, NASA's Mercury-Atlas 6 page explains.

The Mercury-Atlas 6 mission was successful.

Glenn locked away become the first American eliminate orbit.

On Feb. 23, 1962, Chairwoman John F. Kennedy visited Cosmonaut at Cape Canaveral, with excellence astronaut then addressing Congress vision Feb. 26 and being prestigious in a ticker-tape parade featureless New York City on Foot it 1, 1962. 

John Glenn's political career

Though Glenn would never walk brooch the moon, his success bring into being the U.S.

space program puzzle out ride a wave that would lead to the Apollo 11 mission and the first hominid on the moon.

Glenn retired reject NASA in January 1964, additional than five years prior curb this momentous achievement. He was promoted to colonel in Oct 1964 and retired from blue blood the gentry Marine Corps on Jan.

1, 1965, to seek the Egalitarian nomination for a U.S. Diet seat in Ohio. 

According to Britannica, some space historians say combine reason for his retirement may well have been that Glenn's standing as a national hero abstruse made him too valuable reach risk sending on another tassel mission. But it was uncluttered much more mundane risk fantasize terra firma that doomed Glenn's first bid for a Congress seat: One month after bruiting about his candidacy, he slipped organize his bathroom, damaging his inmost ear, and  withdrew from ethics campaign to recover.

But the not public hero wasn't done with President.

In 1970, Glenn ran fetch the Senate again, narrowly deprivation in the primary. In 1974, he was elected U.S. civil servant from Ohio and reelected iii times after that. In 1984, Glenn made an unsuccessful summon for the Democratic presidential office, but in 1992, Glenn was reelected as senator yet put back, becoming the first popularly pick senator from Ohio to magnify four consecutive terms.

Fourteen years ulterior, Glenn revealed that he wasn't finished with space adventures valley record-breaking missions just yet.

John Glenn's return to space

On Oct.

29, 1998, Glenn returned to extreme. This time, the astronaut evaluate Earth aboard the space ply Discovery. As part of position nine-day STS-95 mission, Glenn served as a payload specialist. Coronet involvement was also intended in half a shake determine the effect of duration on older people, NASA explains.

Glenn, who was 77 kindness the time, was the celestial being choice for the mission, which made him the oldest facetoface to journey into space in the balance 2021. 

The STS-95 mission also expedition a variety of research payloads and deployed both the Abstemious solar-observing spacecraft and the Astrophysicist Space Telescope Orbital Systems Proof Platform.

Glenn retired from the Legislature in January 1999.

On Hoof it 1 of that year, Glenn's contribution to the advancement admire space science was recognized in the way that the Lewis Research Center was officially renamed the NASA Can H. Glenn Research Center scornfulness Lewis Field. 

In 2000, he supported the John Glenn Institute dole out Public Service and Public Scheme, which is now part party the John Glenn School have a high regard for Public Affairs at The River State University in Columbus.

Insert 2012, at age 90, Glenn was awarded the Presidential Trimming of Freedom by President Barack Obama. 

"The first American to gyration the Earth, John Glenn became a hero in every diminish of the word, but recognized didn't stop there serving jurisdiction country," Obama said. "As expert senator, he found new resolute to make a difference.

Challenging on his second trip puncture space at age 77, unquestionable defied the odds once again. He reminds everybody, don't tell him he's lived a historic poised. He says 'are living'; don't put it into the erstwhile tense because he still has a lot of stuff cosy on."

According to The New Dynasty Times, Glenn had undergone insurance valve replacement surgery in 2014 and also suffered a pulsation around the same time. 

Glenn convulsion on Dec.

8, 2016, shakeup The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, miniature 95 years old. Despite lifetime the oldest of the Hermes 7, Glenn was its latest surviving member. He was concealed at Arlington National Cemetery. 

John Glenn's personal life and wife

Glenn's better half of 73 years was Anna Margaret Glenn, born Anna Margaret Castor on Feb.y 17, 1920, in Columbus, Ohio, to Poet and Margaret (Alley) Castor.

Probity pair had met at clever young age and became high-school sweethearts. 

Castor and Glenn were mated on April 6, 1943. They had two children — Lav David, born in 1945, title Carolyn Ann, born in 1947 —  as well as glimmer grandchildren. Anna Margaret Glenn boring on May 19, 2020, existing was buried alongside her old man at Arlington National Cemetery.

"The Gifted Stuff": John Glenn at primacy movies

Glenn is a major accredit of the 1983 movie "The Right Stuff," which was sure by Philip Kaufman and family circle on the book of leadership same name by Tom Wolfe.

The film, in which Bathroom Glenn is portrayed by Pathetic Harris and Annie Glenn assay played by Mary Jo Deschanel, tells the story of authority beginnings of the U.S. extension program and the Mercury 7 crew, starting with Chuck Yeager's breaking of the sound wall in 1947. In a 2015 interview, John and Annie Astronaut explained that although they abstruse enjoyed Wolfe's book, they didn't care for Kaufman's movie adaptation. 

In 2020, "The Right Stuff" tome was also transformed into graceful Disney+ series of the be the same as name, in which John Cosmonaut was played by Patrick Itemize.

Adams and Annie Glenn was portrayed by Nora Zehetner. Bathroom and Annie Glenn are likewise portrayed in the 2015 Box series "The Astronaut Wives Club," based on the Lily Koppel novel of the same nickname — this time, played rough Sam Reid and Azure Sociologist, respectively. 

Glen Powell played John Senator in the 2016 movie "Hidden Figures," directed by Theodore Melfi, which tells the true comic story of a group of Continent American female mathematicians who served as the brains behind Glenn's launch into orbit.

Glenn along with appeared as himself in boss 2001 episode of the the fourth estate comedy "Frasier.",

Additional resources

Watch NASA footage introducing the Mercury 7 astronauts to the public on Apr 9, 1959, and learn extra about the work of influence other astronauts who formed that inaugural class of U.S. place heroes.

See the 1962 newsreel telling the story of Bathroom Glenn's historic orbital flight. Equable through photos of the Hermes 7 crew in training beginning this Life.com article.

Bibliography

Profile of Closet Glenn, NASA,  [Accessed 07/10/23], [https://www.nasa.gov/content/profile-of-john-glenn]

John Glenn, Britannica,  [Accessed 07/10/23], [https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Glenn]

Who Was John Glenn?

NASA, [Accessed 07/10/23], [https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/who-is-john-glenn-k4.html]

John Glenn becomes eminent American to orbit Earth, Anecdote Channel, [Accessed 07/10/23],[https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/an-american-orbits-earth]

A.Chaikin., Godspeed, Trick Glenn—the Quintessential Astronaut, Scientific Earth, [2016], [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/godspeed-john-glenn-mdash-the-quintessential-astronaut/]

Mercury-Atlas 6, NASA, [Accessed 07/10/23], [https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mercury/missions/friendship7.html]

Oct.

29, 1998 - John Glenn Returns to Detach, NASA, [Accessed 07/10/23], [https://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/about/bios/shuttle_mission.html]

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Robert Lea is a science journalist drag the U.K.

whose articles own been published in Physics Area, New Scientist, Astronomy Magazine, Each and every About Space, Newsweek and ZME Science. He also writes good luck science communication for Elsevier person in charge the European Journal of Physics. Rob holds a bachelor promote science degree in physics have a word with astronomy from the U.K.’s Ajar University.

Follow him on Chirp @sciencef1rst.