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KF5JRV > TODAY 29.10.18 12:25l 58 Lines 3025 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 23902_KF5JRV
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Subj: Today in History - Oct 29
Path: IW8PGT<IZ3LSV<IK6ZDE<F1OYP<AB0AF<KF5JRV
Sent: 181029/1121Z 23902@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQ6.0.16
Nearly four decades after he became the first American to orbit the
Earth, Senator John Hershel Glenn, Jr., is launched into space again as
a payload specialist aboard the space shuttle Discovery. At 77 years of
age, Glenn was the oldest human ever to travel in space. During the
nine-day mission, he served as part of a NASA study on health problems
associated with aging.
Glenn, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps, was among the
seven men chosen by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA) in 1959 to become America’s first astronauts. A decorated pilot,
he had flown nearly 150 combat missions during World War II and the
Korean War. In 1957, he made the first nonstop supersonic flight across
the United States, flying from Los Angeles to New York in three hours
and 23 minutes.
In April 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space,
and his spacecraft, Vostok 1, made a full orbit before returning to
Earth. Less than one month later, American Alan B. Shepard, Jr., became
the first American in space when his Freedom 7 spacecraft was launched
on a suborbital flight. American “Gusö Grissom made another suborbital
flight in July, and in August Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov spent more
than 25 hours in space aboard Vostok 2, making 17 orbits. As a
technological power, the United States was looking very much second-rate
compared with its Cold War adversary. If the Americans wanted to dispel
this notion, they needed a multi-orbital flight before another Soviet
space advance arrived.
On February 20, 1962, NASA and Colonel John Glenn accomplished this feat
with the flight of Friendship 7, a spacecraft that made three orbits of
the Earth in five hours. Glenn was hailed as a national hero, and on
February 23 President John F. Kennedy visited him at Cape Canaveral.
Glenn later addressed Congress and was given a ticker-tape parade in New
York City.
Out of a reluctance to risk the life of an astronaut as popular as
Glenn, NASA essentially grounded the “Clean Marineö in the years after
his historic flight. Frustrated with this uncharacteristic lack of
activity, Glenn turned to politics and in 1964 announced his candidacy
for the U.S. Senate from his home state of Ohio and formally left NASA.
Later that year, however, he withdrew his Senate bid after seriously
injuring his inner ear in a fall from a horse. In 1970, following a
stint as a Royal Crown Cola executive, he ran for the Senate again but
lost the Democratic nomination to Howard Metzenbaum. Four years later,
he defeated Metzenbaum, won the general election, and went on to win
reelection three times. In 1984, he unsuccessfully sought the Democratic
nomination for president.
In 1998, Glenn attracted considerable media attention when he returned
to space aboard the space shuttle Discovery. In 1999, he retired from
his U.S. Senate seat after four consecutive terms in office, a record
for the state of Ohio.
73 de Scott KF5JRV
Pmail: KF5JRV@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA
email: KF5JRV@ICLOUD.COM
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