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JOHN H. GLENN, JR.
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John Glenn is a twentieth century hero in many people's eyes. He was the first American to orbit the earth in space. Later he became a renowned Senator from Ohio. And of course, in 1998, he became the oldest person ever to fly in space.
John Herschel Glenn, Jr. was born July 18, 1921, in Cambridge, Ohio. In 1939, John Glenn started at Muskigum College. After three years, Glenn entered the Naval Aviation Academy as he was interested in preflight training. He became a part of the U.S. Marine Corps in 1943, in the middle of World War II. He also married Annie Caastor that year.
When World War II broke out, Glenn served in it and attained the rank of colonel. From 1950-1953 he volunteered to keep flying in the military for the Korean War. For all of his bravery in these two wars, he received several medals.
In 1957, John Glenn became the first person to make a nonstop supersonic (greater than the speed of sound) flight from Los Angeles to New York in less than 3 hours and 23 minutes. In 1959, after many flights across America, Glenn was selected to become one of the first of seven astronauts in the U.S. space program.
After many months of training, on February 20, 1962, John Glenn lifted off in his capsule Friendship 7 . This flight was the first by an American to go around the Earth. It covered three orbits, over 81,000 miles and took over 4 hours and 55 min. He was scheduled to fly more orbits, but concern that his capsule's heat shield might be loose forced him to return to Earth early. As it turned out, the heat shield was fine.
After his amazing expedition in space, John Glenn retired from the Marine Corps and in 1974 he won a Democratic seat in the Senate from Ohio. He was elected three more times after that and served until 1998 when he announced his retirement from the Senate.
Even though most people believed his space flight days were over, John Glenn had other ideas. In October of 1998, John Glenn, at the age of 77, returned to space on the space shuttle. Accompanied by other astronauts, he lifted off into space once more to run tests on the changes older people experience in space.
John Glenn is a hero, and a true explorer. Not only on land, but outside our planet and into space, a journey that will never end.
