"April 1961. The spacecraft completed one orbit around the globe, lasting about 1 hour and 48 minutes. Gagarin's flight resonated around the world; it was a demonstration of the advanced Soviet space program and it opened an entirely new era in space exploration: human spaceflight. The U.S. first launched a person into space within a month of ""Vostok 1"" with Alan Shepard's suborbital flight on Freedom 7. Orbital flight was achieved by the United States when John Glenn's Friendship 7 orbited Earth on 20 February 1962. Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, orbited Earth 48 times aboard ""Vostok 6"""
"John Glenn Colonel John Herschel Glenn Jr. (July 18, 1921 – December 8, 2016) was a United States Marine Corps aviator, engineer, astronaut, businessman, and politician. He was the first American to orbit the Earth, circling it three times in 1962. Following his retirement from NASA, he served from 1974 to 1999 as a Democratic United States Senator from Ohio. Before joining NASA, Glenn was a distinguished fighter pilot in World War II, China and Korea. He shot down three MiG-15s, and was awarded six Distinguished Flying Crosses and eighteen Air Medals. In 1957, he made the first supersonic transcontinental"
"1962, ""Barton"" covered the Project Mercury space shot carried out on 18 May in which Colonel John Glenn, USMC, became the first American to orbit the Earth. Late in October, the other units of the Atlantic Fleet and she stood to as support for the warships engaged in the quarantine of Cuba called for by President John F. Kennedy in response to the siting of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. ""Barton"" rehearsed with amphibious units at Onslow Beach, North Carolina, and stood by, ready for immediate action. The ship returned to Norfolk when the crisis ended. At the end of"
"the oldest human to touch the stars."" NASA administrator Charles Bolden said: ""Senator Glenn's legacy is one of risk and accomplishment, of history created and duty to country carried out under great pressure with the whole world watching"". John Glenn Colonel John Herschel Glenn Jr. (July 18, 1921 – December 8, 2016) was a United States Marine Corps aviator, engineer, astronaut, businessman, and politician. He was the first American to orbit the Earth, circling it three times in 1962. Following his retirement from NASA, he served from 1974 to 1999 as a Democratic United States Senator from Ohio. Before joining"
"on July 21, 1961. Almost a year after the Soviet Union put a human into orbit, astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, on February 20, 1962. His Mercury-Atlas 6 mission completed three orbits in the ""Friendship 7"" spacecraft, and splashed down safely in the Atlantic Ocean, after a tense reentry, due to what falsely appeared from the telemetry data to be a loose heat-shield. As the first American in orbit, Glenn became a national hero, and received a ticker-tape parade in New York City, reminiscent of that given for Charles Lindbergh. On February 23, 1962,"
"Mercury-Atlas 6 Mercury-Atlas 6 (MA-6) was the third human spaceflight for the U.S. and part of Project Mercury. Conducted by NASA on February 20, 1962, the mission was piloted by astronaut John Glenn, who performed three orbits of the Earth, making him the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the Earth. The Mercury spacecraft, named Friendship 7, was carried to orbit by an Atlas LV-3B launch vehicle lifting off from Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. After four hours and 56 minutes in flight the spacecraft re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, splashed down in the North Atlantic Ocean and was safely"
"Mercury-Atlas 6 Mercury-Atlas 6 (MA-6) was the third human spaceflight for the U.S. and part of Project Mercury. Conducted by NASA on February 20, 1962, the mission was piloted by astronaut John Glenn, who performed three orbits of the Earth, making him the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the Earth. The Mercury spacecraft, named Friendship 7, was carried to orbit by an Atlas LV-3B launch vehicle lifting off from Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. After four hours and 56 minutes in flight the spacecraft re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, splashed down in the North Atlantic Ocean and was safely"
"Lt. Col. John H. Glenn Jr. becoming the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962 (Major Yuri A. Gagarin, a Soviet cosmonaut, was the first human in orbit in 1961.) Atlas was also used throughout the mid-1960s to launch the Agena Target Vehicles used during the Gemini program. Direct Atlas descendants were continued to be used as satellite launch vehicles into the 21st century. An Atlas rocket is shown exploding, in the 1983 art film ""Koyaanisqatsi"", directed by Godfrey Reggio, in the penultimate shot. The vehicle shown in the movie was the first launch attempt of an Atlas-Centaur in"
"had been suborbital and had lasted only a few minutes. The Soviet missions had both orbited the Earth, and the second, Vostok 2, had remained in orbit for a full day. Using the new high-powered Atlas booster, the coming orbital Mercury missions were expected to reduce the gap between the two countries. NASA announced the first two orbital missions at the end of November 1961, shortly after the Mercury-Atlas 5 (MA-5) test flight, which had carried a chimpanzee and twice orbited the Earth. MA-6 was planned as the first orbital flight, with John Glenn as the primary crew and Scott"
"Colonel John H. Glenn, USMC, made his successful orbital space flight. ""Goodrich"" went on alert again with the 6th Fleet during 24 October to 20 November 1962 when the Navy responded to President John F. Kennedy's call for a quarantine of Cuba that choked off the flow of military supplies and enforced the American demands for the withdrawal of the Soviet missile experts and equipment. On 22 July 1966 the destroyer got underway from Mayport on her 13th 6th Fleet deployment. She cruised throughout the Mediterranean for five months, unobtrusively patrolling with the 6th Fleet and taking part in combined"
"in the Caribbean and served as the recovery ship after splashdown for astronaut Virgil Grissom on America's second manned space flight, a suborbital shot. In February 1962, ""Randolph"" was the primary recovery ship for astronaut John Glenn on his flight, the first American orbital voyage in space. After his historic three-orbit flight, he landed safely near the destroyer from which he was transferred, by helicopter, to ""Randolph"". On 1 April 1964, in an unusual accident, the Number Three deck elevator of ""Randolph"" tore loose from the ship during night operations and fell into the Atlantic off Cape Henry, Virginia, taking"
"recovering him safely on April 12, 1961. The US launched its first Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard on a suborbital flight almost a month later, on May 5. The Soviets launched a second Vostok on a one-day flight on August 6, before the US finally orbited the first American, John Glenn, on February 20, 1962. The United States launched a total of two manned suborbital Mercury capsules and four manned orbital capsules, with the longest flight, Mercury-Atlas 9, making 22 orbits and lasting 32 and one-half hours. Since the Soviets had plenty of lift capability from launch vehicles derived from their"
"Mercury missions, the first United States manned space program. On February 20, 1962 it launched ""Friendship 7"", which made three earth orbits carrying John Glenn, the first United States astronaut to orbit the Earth. Identical Atlas boosters successfully launched three more manned Mercury orbital missions from 1962 to 1963. Beginning in 1960, the Agena upper-stage, powered by hypergolic propellant, was used extensively on Atlas launch vehicles. The United States Air Force, NRO and CIA used them to launch SIGINT satellites. NASA used them in the Ranger program to obtain the first close-up images of the surface of the Moon and"
"Mercury astronaut John Glenn, who was 77 at the time, flew with ""Discovery"" on STS-95 in 1998, making him the oldest person to go into space. Had plans to launch United States Department of Defense payloads from Vandenberg Air Force Base gone ahead, ""Discovery"" would have become the dedicated US Air Force shuttle. Its first West Coast mission, STS-62-A, was scheduled for 1986, but canceled in the aftermath of ""Challenger"". ""Discovery"" was retired after completing its final mission, STS 133 on March 9, 2011. The spacecraft is now on display in Virginia at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, an annex"
"USS ""Stormes"" (DD-780) in the late afternoon and Enos was immediately taken below deck by his Air Force handlers. The ""Stormes"" arrived in Bermuda the next day. Enos's flight was a full dress rehearsal for the next Mercury launch on February 20, 1962, which would make John Glenn the first American to orbit Earth, after astronauts Alan Shepard, Jr. and Gus Grissom's successful suborbital space flights. On November 4, 1962, Enos died of shigellosis-related dysentery, which was resistant to then-known antibiotics. He was constantly observed for two months before his death. Pathologists reported no symptoms that could be attributed or"
"President Kennedy escorted him in a parade at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, where he awarded Glenn with the NASA service medal. The United States launched three more Mercury flights after Glenn's: ""Aurora 7"" on May 24, 1962, duplicated Glenn's three orbits; ""Sigma 7"" on October 3, 1962, six orbits; and ""Faith 7"" on May 15, 1963, 22 orbits (32.4 hours), the maximum capability of the spacecraft. NASA at first intended to launch one more mission, extending the spacecraft's endurance to three days, but since this would not beat the Soviet record, it was decided instead to concentrate on developing"
"with water. Grissom escapes, but the spacecraft, overweight with seawater, sinks. Many criticize Grissom for possibly panicking and opening the hatch prematurely. Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth on Mercury-Atlas 6 on February 20, 1962, surviving a possibly loose heat shield, and receives a ticker-tape parade. He, his colleagues, and their families become celebrities, including a gigantic celebration in the Sam Houston Coliseum to announce the opening of the Manned Space Center in Houston, despite Glenn's wife Annie's fear of public speaking due to a stutter. Although test pilots at Edwards mock the Mercury program for sending"
"USNS John Glenn (T-ESD-2) USNS ""John Glenn"" (T-ESD-2), (""formerly"" MLP-2) is a United States Navy Expeditionary Transfer Dock ship named in honor of John Glenn, a Naval Aviator, retired United States Marine Corps colonel, veteran of World War II and the Korean War, astronaut, and United States senator. The Expeditionary Transfer Dock is a new concept, part of the Maritime Prepositioning Force of the future. To control costs, the ships will not be built to combat vessel standards and are designed primarily to support three military hovercraft (such as the Landing Craft Air Cushion), vehicle staging with a sideport ramp"
"the Atlas ICBM and Titan II, were re-purposed as human launch vehicles for manned spaceflight, both were used in the civilian Project Mercury and Project Gemini programs respectively, which are regarded as stepping stones in the evolution of US manned spaceflight. The Atlas vehicle sent John Glenn, the first American into orbit. Similarly in the Soviet Union it was the R-7 ICBM/launch vehicle that placed the first artificial satellite in space, Sputnik, on 4 October 1957, and the first human spaceflight in history was accomplished on a derivative of the R-7, the Vostok, on 12 April 1961, by cosmonaut Yuri"
"first person in space on an orbital flight. Alan Shepard became the first American in space on a suborbital flight three weeks later, on May 5, 1961. John Glenn, the third Mercury astronaut to fly, became the first American to reach orbit on February 20, 1962, but only after the Soviets had launched a second cosmonaut, Gherman Titov, into a day-long flight in August 1961. Three more Mercury orbital flights were made, ending on May 16, 1963 with a day-long, 22 orbit flight. However, the Soviet Union ended its Vostok program the next month, with the human spaceflight endurance record"
"in the initial 2016 announcement, and the second stage will now be powered by two upper stage versions of the BE-3 tap-off cycle liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen rocket engine. Blue explained in the 12 September 2016 announcement that the rocket would be named ""New Glenn"" in honor of the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth, John Glenn. Three weeks of wind tunnel testing of a scale model ""New Glenn"" were completed in September 2016 in order to validate the CFD design models of transonic and supersonic flight. In March 2017, Jeff Bezos showed graphics of the New Glenn which had"
"full capabilities of the nuclear powered super carrier. On 20 February 1962, ""Enterprise"" was a tracking and measuring station for the flight of ""Friendship 7"", the Project Mercury space capsule in which Lieutenant Colonel John H. Glenn, Jr. made the first American orbital spaceflight. In August, the carrier joined the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea, returning to Norfolk, Virginia in October. In October 1962, ""Enterprise"" was dispatched to her first international crisis. Following revelations that the Soviet Union was constructing nuclear missile launch sites on Cuba, President John F. Kennedy ordered the United States Department of Defense to conduct"
"mercy missions to Santiago, Chile in May 1960, when an earthquake literally re-made parts of that country; in 1962, the four month round the world tour of John Glenn’s space capsule Friendship 7 ; many re-supply missions from Thule Air Base, Greenland to the northern most weather outposts at Nord, Greenland and Alert, both within just some 500 miles of the North Pole; the delivery of a telespectrograph to Ascension Island in support of the space project FIRE. It was the first time such an instrument was airlifted as a complete unit; the airlift of supplies and emergency equipment to"
"Navy, Air Force and Marine test pilot programs. On May 5, 1961, astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space aboard ""Freedom 7"", launched by a Redstone booster on a 15-minute ballistic (suborbital) flight. John Glenn became the first American to be launched into orbit, by an Atlas launch vehicle on February 20, 1962, aboard ""Friendship 7"". Glenn completed three orbits, after which three more orbital flights were made, culminating in L. Gordon Cooper's 22-orbit flight ""Faith 7"", May 15–16, 1963. The Soviet Union (USSR) competed with its own single-pilot spacecraft, Vostok. They sent the first man in space,"
"shuttle astronaut Charles Bolden, who wrote: ""John Glenn's legacy is one of risk and accomplishment, of history created and duty to country carried out under great pressure with the whole world watching."" President Obama ordered flags to be flown at half-mast until Glenn's burial. On April 5, 2017, President Donald Trump issued presidential proclamation , titled ""Honoring the Memory of John Glenn"". Glenn was awarded the John J. Montgomery Award in 1963. Glenn received National Geographic Society's Hubbard Medal in 1962. Glenn, along with 37 other space race astronauts, received the Ambassador of Space Exploration Award in 2006. He was"
"instruments for testing and designing antennas, had broken ground on a 25-acre facility in Northeast Atlanta, and had 240 employees on the payroll including 40 engineers. Scientific Atlanta helped NASA establish ground stations for communication with astronauts during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo projects. When John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962 on Mercury-Atlas 6, his voice was transmitted and received by radio antennas designed and equipment built by Scientific Atlanta. In the 1970s, Robinson recognized the potential combination of communications satellites and cable television. Ted Turner purchased one of Scientific Atlanta's first satellite systems,"
"nutrition."" One of John Glenn's many tasks, as the first American to orbit Earth in 1962, was to experiment with eating in weightless conditions. Some experts had been concerned that weightlessness would impair swallowing. Glenn experienced no difficulties and it was determined that microgravity did not affect the natural swallowing process, which is enabled by the peristalsis of the esophagus. Astronauts in later Mercury missions (1959–1963) disliked the food that was provided. They ate bite-sized cubes, freeze-dried powders, and tubes of semiliquids. The astronauts found it unappetizing, experienced difficulties in rehydrating the freeze-dried foods, and did not like having to"
"Unlike Gagarin, Shepard manually controlled his spacecraft's attitude, and landed inside it. The first American in orbit was John Glenn aboard ""Friendship 7"", launched 20 February 1962 on a Mercury-Atlas rocket. The USSR launched five more cosmonauts in Vostok capsules, including the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova aboard Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963. The US launched a total of two astronauts in suborbital flight and four into orbit through 1963. US President John F. Kennedy raised the stakes of the Space Race by setting the goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely by"
"named ""Delta 7""), Carpenter was assigned to replace him. He flew into space on May 24, 1962, atop the Mercury-Atlas 7 rocket for a three-orbit science mission that lasted nearly five hours. His ""Aurora 7"" spacecraft attained a maximum altitude of and an orbital velocity of . Carpenter performed five onboard experiments per the flight plan, and became the first American astronaut to eat solid food in space. He also identified the mysterious ""fireflies"" observed by Glenn during ""Friendship 7"" as particles of frozen liquid loosened from the outside of the spacecraft, which he could produce by rapping on the"
"more than a decade the destroyer continued her already established peacetime operation pattern. Highlights of this exacting duty included participation as a recovery station ship in the 1961 and 1962 Project Mercury flights, and in the search for the lost nuclear powered submarine . In August 1961 ""Glennon"" was called away suddenly to join the task force for the Project Mercury space shot carrying Major Gus Grissom. In early 1962 she was again chosen to man an Atlantic recovery station for the historic three-orbit flight of Major John Glenn. An extensive overhaul at Boston terminated on 24 July 1963, and"
"and the crews exchanged visits. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. Its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Union. John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth on February 20, 1962 aboard the Mercury-Atlas 6. Project Gemini was NASA's second manned"
"New Glenn The New Glenn (named for John Glenn) is a heavy-lift orbital launch vehicle in development by Blue Origin. Design work on the vehicle began in 2012. The vehicle itself, and the high-level specifications, were initially publicly unveiled in September 2016. ""New Glenn"" is described as a , two- or three-stage rocket. Its first stage will be powered by seven BE-4 engines that are also being designed and manufactured by Blue Origin. Like the ""New Shepard"" suborbital launch vehicle that preceded it, the ""New Glenn"" first stage is designed to be reusable. Blue Origin aims to launch New Glenn"
"public was becoming increasingly shocked and alarmed at the widening lead obtained by the USSR, so President John F. Kennedy announced on May 25 a plan to land a man on the moon by 1970, launching the three-man Apollo program. On February 20, 1962, the US succeeded in launching the third manned orbital spaceflight in history, with John Glenn, the first US orbital astronaut, making three orbits during his Friendship 7 mission. By May 16, 1963, the US launched a total of six Project Mercury astronauts, logging a cumulative 34 Earth orbits, and 51 hours in space. The first woman"