On April 6, 1959 — the Glenns’ 16th wedding anniversary — NASA accepted John Glenn into its Project Mercury space program.
At 9:47 a.m. on Feb. 20, 1962, the nation and the world anxiously watched or listened as an Atlas rocket, belching 367,000 pounds of flaming thrust, blasted Glenn’s Friendship 7 capsule into space and into orbit around the Earth.
As the rocket accelerated, fellow astronaut Scott Carpenter uttered the now famous tense-filled sentiments felt by many: “Godspeed, John Glenn.” Even the normally staid CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite was caught up, saying on air, “Go, baby, go.”
After some nerve-racking moments in which Glenn was forced to steer the craft, NASA lost contact with him upon atmospheric reentry, and there was a mounting fear that his capsule might incinerate, Glenn and Friendship 7 splashed down in the Atlantic, three orbits and 4 hours and 56 minutes later.
Glenn, then 40, was the first American to orbit Earth and an instant hero, honored with impromptu and planned parades in Florida; Washington, D.C.; New Concord, Ohio; and, along with the other Mercury astronauts, in one of the country’s largest pageants ever — a penetratingly cold New York City ticker tape parade in March thronged by an estimated 4 million people.
President John Kennedy forwarded a rare invitation to Glenn to address a joint session of Congress. Glenn reflected later that he stood at the Congressional podium as much because of his patriotism as for his exploits, and he intended to encourage the country’s continued investment into NASA.
“Exploration and the pursuit of knowledge have always paid dividends in the long run — usually far greater than anything expected at the outset,” Glenn told Congress.
