NASA ‘Grateful’ for Former Astronaut John Glenn’s Service

John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth.

Glenn returned to space in a long-awaited second flight in 1998 aboard the Discovery.

“The Ohio State University community deeply mourns the loss of John Glenn, Ohio’s consummate public servant and a true American hero”.

Glenn was a Marine pilot who flew combat mission in the South Pacific during World War II.

Glenn’s historic flight made him a favorite of President John Kennedy and his brother Robert, who encouraged him to launch a political career that finally took off after a period as a businessman made him a millionaire.

Glenn married his childhood sweetheart, Anna “Annie” Margaret Castor, in 1943. But just as important as what John Glenn accomplished is how he accomplished it: with a combination of fierce determination and profound humility, and always with integrity. He broke the transcontinental flight speed record when he was a pilot in the U.S. Marine Corps.

He is the last surviving astronaut from NASA’s early Mercury missions.

In 1962, Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth in Friendship 7.

After his 23-year career in the USA military and space program ended in 1965, Glenn entered the Senate as a Democrat.

President Barack Obama said that with Glenn’s passing, “our nation has lost an icon, and Michelle and I have lost a friend”. Last June, at a ceremony renaming the Columbus airport for him, Glenn recalled imploring his parents to take him to that airport to look at planes whenever they passed through the city: “It was something I was fascinated with”. It may seem as unavoidable as it is trite to say it, but Glenn’s backup for the first orbital flight, Scott Carpenter, famously ad libbed over a launch comm link what served him in life and now in death: Godspeed, John Glenn. Rather, it was his deep religious faith, his love of country, his love of wife Annie Glenn, and his children.

He ran for president in 1984 but lost the Democratic nomination to Walter Mondale.

Glenn died at a Columbus, Ohio, hospital where he was hospitalized for more than a week. Two Russians, Yuri A. Gagarin and Gherman S. Titov, had already orbited Earth the year before, overshadowing the feats of two Americans, Alan B. Shepard and Virgil I. Grissom. He broke a speed record in 1957 flying from Los Angeles to NY in three hours and 23 minutes. John was an American hero and an #Ohio legend. In this audio file from January 29, 1963, Jack James, manager of the Mariner program exploring the inner solar system at JPL, speaks with John Glenn, who was then providing astronaut input into the new Apollo program. From Friendship 7 to the Space Shuttle Discovery, he truly answered a higher calling to public service.