ANTERACTERIA — The United States space flight program had a fateful opportunity today, 60 years ago. On February 20, 1962, NASA astronaut John Glenn was launched from Florida’s Cape Canaveral in a small capsule called Friendship 7. The Mercury spacecraft circled Earth three times, finally crashing near the Turks and Caicos Islands four hours and 55 minutes after liftoff.
It was the United States’ first manned spaceflight, following the milestone previously achieved by the country’s Cold War rival, the Soviet Union. 10 months earlier, the Soviet Union with its important mission, Yuri Gagarin, flew its first cosmonaut.
The US caught up a bit during the early days of the space race. The Soviet Union has always been the first country. They were the first to launch a satellite into orbit, Sputnik 1 in October 1957, the first to send an animal into orbit, the dog Laika in November 1957, and the first to return living things to Earth orbit from orbital missions, the dogs Belka and Strelka in August 1960. Laika it did manage to orbit, but died on its way home from the impact of the atmosphere.
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And so Gagarin’s epic mission was born. On April 12, 1961, a cosmonaut became the first person to reach outer space and also the first to orbit Earth. It dealt another blow to the psyche of American policymakers, national security officials, and society at large.
The shock was more than an embarrassment, as the Soviet Union seemed far superior to the US in key areas of technological capability. Rockets that carry animals or humans into space are not much different from missiles equipped with nuclear warheads.
So, Glenn’s 5 -hour trip beyond the planet is huge for NASA and the U.S. nation.
“His flight on Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962, showed the world that America was a serious competitor in the space race with the Soviet Union,” NASA officials wrote in Glenn’s profile several years ago. “It also makes Glenn an instant hero.”
Starting with that momentum, the US continued to build and eventually won the top prize of the space race. They successfully completed the moon landing mission, Apollo 11 in July 1969.
Glenn, didn’t disappear after the excitement about his space flight died down. He retired from NASA in January 1964 and entered civil service a decade later. He won the US Senate election from Ohio in 1974. He was re-elected in the 1980, 1986, and 1992 elections.
“He is considered one of the Senate’s leading experts in technical and scientific matters, and has earned widespread respect for his work in preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction,” a NASA official wrote in Glen’s profile.
“He is proud to use his position on the Government Affairs Committee to eradicate waste in the government and to clean up the country’s nuclear materials production plant.”
Glenn then returned to orbit. In October 1998, at the age of 77, he spent nine days aboard the space shuttle Discovery, becoming the oldest person to ever travel to the last frontier.
That record lasted until July 2021, when aviation pioneer Wally Funk blasted off into suborbital space aboard the New Shepard Blue Origin spacecraft at the age of 82. ‘Star Trek’ actor William Shatner then snatched the title from Funk just three months later, flying off on a New Shepard mission at the age of 90.
Glenn died on December 8, 2016, at the age of 95. His long, prolific and inspiring life left a huge imprint on the history books and American consciousness. NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Ohio is named after the pioneering astronaut.
Source: Space.com
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