Octber 29th 1998
On February 20, 1962, John Glenn piloted the Mercury-Atlas 6 "Friendship 7" spacecraft on the first manned orbital mission of the United States. Launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, he completed a successful three-orbit mission
around the earth, reaching a maximum altitude (apogee) of approximately 162 statute
miles and an orbital velocity of approximately 17,500 miles per hour. Glenn's "Friendship 7" Mercury spacecraft landed approximately 800 miles southeast of Kennedy Space Center, in the vicinity of Grand Turk Island. Mission duration from launch to impact was 4 hours, 55 minutes, and 23 seconds. Technical Information on John Glenn's first flight in Feb.1962 Project Mercury Friendship 7 can be found at:
http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/history/mercury/ma-6/ma-6.html
John Herschel Glenn, Jr was born July 18, 1921 in Cambridge, Ohio. Married Anna Margaret Castor of New Concord, Ohio. They have two grown children and two grandchildren. For a Biography of John Glenn:
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/glenn-j.html
John Glenn has a very interesting and informative WEB site at:
http://www.senate.gov/%7Eglenn/main.html
For detailed information on the October 29th Launch
http://shuttle.nasa.gov/future/sts95/glenn.html
For the October 29th launch schedule:
http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/schedule/schedule.htm
For other information on the launch:
http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/sts-95/mission-sts-95.html
Why am I excited about John Glenn's return to flying in space again? Back in 1944 when I was a part of the US Forest Service "Smoke Jumpers" fire fighting units at Missoula, Montana , where we parachuted on small fires, from an airplane, to prevent them from becoming big fires. http://www.hcn.org/1995/aug07/dir/Feature_Fighting_f.html I often thought how much fun it would be to fly an airplane. I was 25 years old at that time and full of the spirit of adventure. Space travel at that time was still more or less a "Buck Rogers" fantasy. I never did become a pilot but did manage to make 17 parachute jumps during my Smoke Jumping days.
Then I volunteered to do Quaker relief work in Germany. Returned home in '49 married a wonderful woman. It was when the youngest of our three children was a year old that the Soviet Union surprised the world by sending, Yuri A. Gagarin, a Russian Cosmonaut into space to be the first person ever to orbit the earth in a space ship. http://solar.rtd.utk.edu/~mwade/astros/gagarin.htm A year later John Glenn was launched into earth orbit from the Kennedy Space Center. The next few years were exciting times with a growing number of Mercury and Apollo flights.
On July 19th, 1969 people were astounded to see Neil Armstrong step from his space ship and walk on the surface of the moon.
http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/history/apollo/apollo-11/apollo-11.html For an interesting report of the moon landing scroll down to the LAUNCH section.
The space age had begun in earnest. For a while, it seemed, that space travel would soon be available for many of us. But then it all quieted down for a few years and with only a few flights a year.
Now again the space program is taking on a new life. Sending a 77 year old former astronaut into space may again create interest in space travel for the average person. I hope that I live to see and participate in such an adventure. There are 7 astronauts aboard this mission, one of whom is a woman, their ages range between 35-77 years.
Eastman Kodak's WEB page will be featuring daily photo's starting Oct 19th of the preparation for the flight and directly from the flight during its 9 day mission. http://www.kodak.com/whatsNew/whatsNew.shtml
On October 27th a couple of days before John Glenn's scheduled return to space at the age of 77, TV's Biography Channel will profile him. (See your local TV guide for time and station location.) For more information go to Biography's WEB site at: http://www.biography.com/
It has now been nearly one year since I started writing these bi-monthly reports. Some have expressed your interest & appreciation. To the rest of you, I would like to hear "Yes or No" whether you would be interested in my continuing. Just press REPLY and in the subject line type "Yes" or "No" That should take only a minute or two of your time and certainly would be appreciated.
Thanks for taking the time to do this.
Bill Weber