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(born on July, 1921 in Cambridge, Ohio, U.S.) |
| John Herschell Glenn Jr. , the
first person to make a nonstop supersonic
transcontinental flight, from Los Angeles to New York
City, setting a speed record of 3 hr 23 min 8.4 sec. In
1962 he became the first American to orbit the earth in
space, in the Project Mercury Gemini capsule Friendship 7 Glenn joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1943 and flew 59 missions during World War II and 90 missions during the Korean War. He was a test pilot from 1954 and in 1959 was promoted to lieutenant colonel. Of the seven astronauts selected in that year for Project Mercury space-flight training, he was the oldest. Glenn served as a backup pilot for Alan B. Shepard, Jr., and Virgil I. Grissom, who made the first two U.S. suborbital flights into space. Glenn was selected for the orbital flight, and on February 20, 1962, his space capsule, "Friendship 7," was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Its orbit ranged from approximately 99 to 162 miles (159 to 261Kilometers) in altitude, and Glenn made three orbits, landing in the Atlantic Ocean near the Bahamas. Glenn retired from both the space program and the Marine Corps in 1964 to enter private business and to pursue his interest in politics. In 1970 he campaigned for the nomination as the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Ohio, losing by a narrow margin in the primary election. He was elected U.S. senator from that state in 1974 and was reelected in 1980. Glenn was unsuccessful, however, in his bid to become the Democratic candidate for president in 1984. |
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| Thinkquest Team 18033 |
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