Glenn’s Legacy Continues in Space, at Ohio State

Published Date January 11, 2025
News Type College News

By Joan Slattery Wall

Blue Origin’s rocket, dubbed the New Glenn in honor of two-time astronaut Sen. John Glenn, is scheduled to launch next week from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

In 1962, aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn was the first American to orbit Earth in a five-hour flight that circled our planet three times. Glenn returned from the flight, still regarded as one of the most important in American history, a national hero and a symbol of American ambition. 

On Oct. 29, 1998, Glenn, then 77, returned to space on the Discovery space shuttle’s STS-95 mission with a goal of seeking answers to the aging process. The launch from the Kennedy Space Center made Glenn the oldest person to go into space at that time. His trip covered 134 orbits in nearly nine days, racking up 3.6 million miles.

The two flights I was privileged to make stand as bookends of the history of space flight thus far. Now new volumes are being written.

Sen. John Glenn
From his Memoir

“Senator Glenn was obviously a pioneer and champion of spaceflight. But he was also an immense supporter of education in order to improve citizenship, which ultimately increases the value, uniqueness and leadership of the United States in the world,” said Professor John Horack, the Neil Armstrong Chair in Aerospace Policy in the John Glenn College of Public Affairs and College of Engineering’s Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department. 

Calm in the Face of Danger

University Archivist Carly Dearborn shares her thoughts about the Friendship 7 controller and failed thruster, now housed at the John Glenn College of Public Affairs. 

“With New Glenn, I think we see another essential capability coming on-line,” he said, “fortified by the work of a new generation of space professionals, from relatively new actors in the space domain, that will not only bring greater access to space but also help derive the outcomes on Earth which spaceflight enables, and for which Senator Glenn so passionately advocated.”

According to Blue Origin, New Glenn is engineered with the safety and redundancy required to fly humans and will enable Blue Origin’s vision of building a road to space for the benefit of Earth. At more than 320 feet tall, New Glenn is one of the largest vehicles ever built. It can carry more than 13 metric tons to geostationary transfer orbit and 45 metric tons to low Earth orbit and will serve the needs of civil, commercial and defense customers. Its first stage is designed for a minimum of 25 flights. 

Portrait of STS-95 Payload Specialist John Glenn wearing the orange partial-pressure launch and entry suit (NASA photo)

“John Glenn’s historic mission in 1962 charted our future course in space. His feat was a culmination of countless years of technological innovation, human ingenuity and an innate desire to explore the unknown,” a Blue Origin spokesperson told the Glenn College in 2022, when the company hosted visit and tour with a cohort of friends and representatives from the college. “It seemed befitting to name our orbital rocket after John Glenn, whose legacy as an aviator, astronaut and public servant inspires us to this day.”

Glenn’s legacy to space continues here at The Ohio State University with research and innovation supporting Starlab, a multimillion-dollar, NASA-funded effort to develop a new generation of commercially based, human-occupied space stations in low-Earth orbit. The research is led by Horack.

Ohio State is the leading university in the global Starlab partnership, led by Voyager Space in the United States, with key partners that include Airbus, Mitsubishi, MDA, Palantir and Hilton Hotels. Starlab will be a next-generation space station in low-Earth orbit. It is being developed to replace the International Space Station, which is scheduled for retirement in 2030. Ohio State is also home to the George Washington Carver Science Park, currently operating to build a global research and technology ecosystem that binds university, for-profit, government and other researchers to extract maximum value from research performed in low-Earth orbit. The space park, established by Voyager Space and Ohio State, operates on campus from a temporary space today and will eventually be built out permanently at the north side of the Ohio State University Airport in Columbus.

Commerce in the Cosmos

Professor John Horack, the Neil Armstrong Chair in Aerospace Policy in the John Glenn College of Public Affairs and College of Engineering, discusses Ohio State’s terrestrial version of the George Washington Carver Science Park and policy issues that affect the space industry.

The space park at Ohio State will house terrestrial laboratories, payload development and integration, STEM education and facilities to enable scientists and engineers to ready experiments and technologies for flight on Starlab and other platforms, and then, back on Earth, to further develop the findings for commercial development to drive them into the economy, education and training. 

In addition, Horack teaches “U.S. Space Policy and the Global Space Economy,” offered through the Battelle Center for Science, Engineering and Public Policy in the Glenn College. 

The course offers a broad survey of U.S. space policy and the national and international actors in the aerospace enterprise, welcoming as guest lecturers who are space leaders from government, private sector and global space entities.

Battelle also hosts Student Communities of Practice and Engagement, including an Air and Space Community for students and faculty interested in the latest news and notes in aerospace to come together and learn about the broader context of the industry.

Learn more about the legacy of John Glenn’s astronaut career.