John Glenn, First US Astronaut to Orbit Earth, Has Died at 95
John Glenn, First US Astronaut to Orbit Earth, Has Died at 95
John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth and, later, the oldest human to leave the planet, died on December 8, 2016. He was 95 years old.
In 1962, Glenn became the face of American technological triumph. NASA rocketed him upward in a vessel that looked more like a spotlight bulb than a space capsule, not sure that he would make it back. But they knew they had to try, and that this was the time.
While evolved humans now think of space exploration as an international, uniting endeavor, Glenn took flight in a nationalistic, cold-warring time in US history. The Soviet Union had launched Sputnik five years before, in 1957. Its loudspeaker-broadcasted beep echoed through the halls of schools across America and the living rooms of citizens who just wanted their country to also go to space. That same year, the Soviet space agency sent up a dog-stronaut, and soon, humans Yuri Gagarin and Gherman S. Titov had pushed beyond Earths atmosphere.
The United States—anxious, excited, threatened, jealous—was stuck on Earth, with no voyages under its belt. And then came John Glenn, a little ol guy from the Midwest, who strapped himself into the Friendship 7 capsule, sat still while fire and fuel combatted gravity, and said goodbye to Earth for a few hours. The Hello, welcome back that he received was one for a national hero, who had shown Americans that Americans didnt have to be stuck on this planet, and they no longer had to feel afraid of being left behind.
Glenn ran again in the Senate primaries in 1970 and lost, buttenacious like all astronauts and all politicianstry, tried again. In 1974, he got his Senate seat and left Royal Crown. During his time as a Senator, from 1974 to 1995, Glenn was the primary author of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978 and served for 27 years as chair of the Senate Government Affairs Committee. He unsuccessfully grasped at the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984.
Over the course of his political career, Glenn missed 729 of 10,131 roll call votes—7.2 percent compared to the average of 1.9. His absence at voting meetings was a sore spot toward the end of his Senate career. But the negligence came from the only reason Glenn would be negligent: He had bigger plans. He was training to go to space, again, at age 77.
Glenn had been petitioning NASA to stick him on the space shuttle, to help them study aging and also so that he could go to space again, because who doesnt want that? Finally, he convinced them. And so on October 29, 1998, Glenn became the newest, oldest astronaut, as well as Americas first one. I watched that shuttle launch from my Central Florida backyard as a 13-year-old kid. I looked at the huge plume arcing through the sky and thought, Well, if he can do it just as so many Americans had 36 years before.
One hundred thirty-four on-orbit sunsets and sunrises—and 213 hours later—Glenn returned to Earth for the final time.
After the shuttle touched back down, Glenn told the press, You should run your life not by the calendar but how you feel, and what your interests are and ambitions. Old folks have dreams and ambitions too, like everybody else. Don’t sit on a couch someplace.
He always followed his own advice. Godspeed, John Glenn.
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