60 years ago today, the United States got a shot in the arm for its human spaceflight program.
On February 20, 1962, John Glenn became the first American to fly in a plane. Four hours and 55 minutes after liftoff, the Mercury spacecraft splashed down near the Turks and Caicos Islands.
The United States was the first nation in the history of the world to have a crewed orbital spaceflight.
John Glenn's historic 1st U.S. orbital human spaceflight took place 60 years ago.
During the early days of the space race, the U.S. played catch-up. The Soviet Union was the first country to launch a satellite, the first to send an animal to space, and the first to return living creatures to Earth.
Gagarin had an epic mission. On April 12, 1961, the first person to reach space and also the first to be on Earth, dealt another blow to the psyche of American policymakers, national security officials and the public at large.
The Soviet Union seemed to be ahead of the U.S. in a key area of technological capability. Animals or people in space are not different from missiles with nuclear warheads.
Glenn's 5-hour jaunt off the planet was huge for NASA and the nation.
NASA officials wrote in a profile of Glenn a few years ago that he was an instant hero because of his flight on Feb. 20, 1962, which showed the world that America was a serious contender in the space race with the Soviet Union.
The U.S. won the grand prize in the space race after the Apollo 11 moon mission in 1969.
Glenn, one of NASA's original Mercury 7 astronauts, didn't fade into obscurity after his landmark flight died down. He was elected to the U.S. Senate from Ohio in 1974 after retiring from NASA. He was re-elected in 1980, 1986 and 1992 and served four terms in the body.
He was considered one of the Senate's leading experts on technical and scientific matters, and won wide respect for his work to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
Glenn was going to go to space again. He became the oldest person to ever travel to the final frontier when he spent nine days on the space shuttle Discovery in 1998. The title was held by William Shatner until July 2021, when he wrested it away from aviation pioneer Wally Funk, who went to suborbital space at the age of 22.
Alan Shepard was the first American to reach space in 1961, and New Shepard is named after him. Shepard flew on a 15-minute suborbital mission, quite a different experience than Glenn did.
Glenn passed away on December 8, 2016 at the age of 95. His long, productive and inspiring life left a large mark on the history books and the American consciousness. The Glenn Research Center in Ohio is named after a pioneer in the field. The National Air and Space Museum in Virginia has a Freedom 7 capsule on display.
Mike Wall is the author of Out There, a book about the search for alien life. You can follow him on social media. Follow us on social media.
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