Some people will ALWAYS have The RIGHT STUFF – 50 years ago JOHN GLENN flew higher and faster than ANYONE and now he’s getting another hero’s return!
Feburary 20th, 2012, marks the half century mark when Lt. Col. Glenn lifted off and became the first American to orbit the Earth.
In the darkest hours of 1962 with the United States and Russia on the threshold of nuclear annihilation a Marine Corps fighter pilot from small-town America stepped forward to heed the clarion call.
“The Right Stuff” author Tom Wolfe has said that Glenn was “the last true national hero America has ever had.”
Squeezed into the tiny pod of a Mercury space capsule, called “Friendship 7”, Glenn was catapulted into the heavens by an Atlas rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Glenn circled the Earth three times, becoming the first American to orbit the planet.
The New York Times reported that "perhaps, no other spaceflight — all 4 hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds of it — had been followed by so many — with such paralyzing apprehension.”
While orbiting, Glenn saw the sun rise and set three times that Tuesday in space from an altitude of 162 miles.
Suddenly, a kaleidoscopic panoply of what appeared to be glowing extraterrestrial fireflies appeared outside the view window, mystifying him and NASA. (They were revealed later to be ice crystals).
Then came word of a problem that had the world bracing for near catastrophe.
The heat shield which would allow safe re-entry into the atmosphere had come loose.
If it didn’t hold, Glenn would have burned up, an incendiary will o’ the wisp across the night sky.
Thankfully, it held and Glenn was re-launched across the national consciousness as a true American hero.
Now 90, having served in Congress and returning to space aboard the space shuttle as a senior aged 77, Glenn is prepping for all the hoopla — all over again.
On Saturday, Glenn got a hero’s welcome at Cape Canaveral for a reunion with those remaining members of the Mercury space team, and longtime fans.
Just don’t call him a “hero”.
“I don’t think of myself that way,” Glenn said.
“I get up each day and have the same problems others have at my age. As far as trying to analyze all the attention I received, I will leave that to others.”
John, you ARE a hero.
