Extract from ABC News
Posted
John Glenn, whose 1962 flight as the first US astronaut to orbit the Earth made him an all-American hero, has died.
The last survivor of the original Mercury 7 astronauts was 95.Mr Glenn died at the James Cancer Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, where he was hospitalised for more than a week, said Hank Wilson, communications director for the John Glenn School of Public Affairs.
John Herschel Glenn Jr had two major career paths that often intersected: flying and politics, and he soared in both of them.
Before he gained fame orbiting the world, he was a fighter pilot in two wars, and as a test pilot, he set a transcontinental speed record.
He later served 24 years in the Senate for Ohio. A rare setback was a failed 1984 run for the Democratic presidential nomination.
His long political career enabled him to return to space in the shuttle Discovery at age 77 in 1998, a cosmic victory lap that he relished and which gave him the record for the oldest person in space.
More than anything, Mr Glenn was the ultimate and uniquely American space hero: a combat veteran with an easy smile, a strong marriage of 70 years and nerves of steel.
'Zero G, and I feel fine'
The Soviet Union leaped ahead in space exploration by putting the Sputnik 1 satellite in orbit in 1957, and then launched the first man in space, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, in a 108-minute orbital flight on April 12, 1961.
After two suborbital flights by Alan Shepard Jr and Gus Grissom, it was up to Mr Glenn to be the first American to orbit the Earth.
"Godspeed, John Glenn," fellow astronaut Scott Carpenter radioed just before he thundered off a Cape Canaveral launch pad, now a National Historic Landmark, to a place America had never been.
At the time of that February 20, 1962, flight, he was 40 years old.
With the all-business phrase, "Roger, the clock is operating, we're underway," Mr Glenn radioed to Earth as he started his 4 hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds in space.
Years later, he explained he said that because he didn't feel like he had lifted off and it was the only way he knew he had launched.
During the flight, Mr Glenn uttered a phrase that he would repeat frequently throughout life: "Zero G, and I feel fine."
"It still seems so vivid to me," Mr Glenn said in a 2012 interview on the 50th anniversary of the flight.
"I still can sort of pseudo feel some of those same sensations I had back in those days during launch and all."
'The last true national hero America has ever had'
The Friendship 7 mission also introduced him to politics. He addressed a joint session of Congress, and dined at the White House.He became friends with President Kennedy and ally and friend of his brother Robert. The Kennedys urged him to enter politics, and after a difficult few starts he did.
Mr Glenn spent 24 years in the US Senate, representing Ohio longer than any other senator in the state's history.
But his star was dimmed somewhat by a Senate investigation of several senators on whether special favours were done for a major campaign contributor. He was cleared of wrongdoing.
He announced his impending retirement in 1997, 35 years to the day after he became the first American in orbit, saying, "There is still no cure for the common birthday."
Mr Glenn returned to space in a long-awaited second flight in 1998 aboard the space shuttle Discovery.
He got to move around aboard the shuttle for far longer, nine days compared with just under five hours in 1962, as well as sleep and experiment with bubbles in weightlessness.
His experiences as a pioneer astronaut were chronicled in the book and movie The Right Stuff, along with the other Mercury pilots.
The book's author, Tom Wolfe, called Mr Glenn "the last true national hero America has ever had".
"I don't think of myself that way," Mr Glenn told the New York Times in 2012.
"I get up each day and have the same problems others have at my age. As far as trying to analyse all the attention I received, I will leave that to others."
AP/Reuters
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