Formal portrait of Astronaut John Glenn, taken in early 1962 just weeks before he became the first American to orbit the earth.
The first seven American astronauts, posing informally in front of a Mercury capsule. John Glenn is third from the right.
As 1962 dawned, the American space program needed a big lift. The previous April, just weeks before the scheduled launch of the first U.S. man into space, Russian Yuri Garagrin went into orbit. While Garagrin only flew for a single orbit, it was a big blow, not just because American had been beaten in the race to be first to put a man into space, but because the first American astronauts would be launched on brief (15-minutes each) "suborbital" flights using the small Redstone rocket which simply wasn't powerful enough to boost a Mercury capsule into orbit. Further "salt was rubbed into the open wound" that August, when Gherman Titov stayed in orbit for 24 hours, going around the earth 17 times. While two American astronauts DID go into space during 1961, both Alan Shephard (on May 5th) and Virgil "Gus" Grissom" (on July 21st) flew on suborbital flights. It would not be until 1962 until an American would orbit the earth.
A diagram of the Mercury capsule. The tower attached to the top of the capsule would jerk the capsule away from the rocket if it exploded on the launch pad or during the early part of the flight. Otherwise, the tower would be jettisoned three minutes after liftoff.
A color illustration of a Mercury capsule, complete with escape tower.
By January, NASA was ready to try to launch an American into orbit, using the more powerful Atlas rocket (originally developed as a U.S. Air Force intrercontinental missile), which was capable of launching a Mercury capsule into orbit (aproximately 17,500 miles per hour). The man selected was John H. Glenn Jr., a 41-year-old U.S. Marines Lieutenant Colonel, who had been backup pilot for both Shephard and Grissom's suborbital flights. Even before being named one of the "original 7" astronauts, Glenn was already famous for both setting a new record for the fastest transcontinental airplane flight (nonstop on a jet fighter averaging faster than the speed of sound, even with a couple of mid-air refueling stops) and for being a big winner on the television game show "Name That Tune". Glenn applied his hard work ethic to astronaut training, and was perhaps the logical choice to be the first American to try to orbit the earth. The flight would be for three orbits around the earth, a total flight time of just under 5 hours.
The first attempt to launch Glenn was scheduled for early January, but was repeatdely postponed. On Saturday, January 27th, Glenn climbed into Friendship 7, somewhat confident that this would be the day he would finally go into space. But a persistant cloud cover over Cape Canavaral forced Mission Control to "hold" the countdown. By early afternoon, there was good news and bad news. The good news was that the skies would clear. The bad news was it wouldn't be in time for Glenn to be launched and for Friendship 7 to splash down in the Western Atlantic during daylight. Just thirteen minutes before he would have been launched, the decision was made to postpone or "scrub" the flight. Glenn later told reporters that he was disappointed, but not bitter. NASA decided to postpone the launch until at least mid-February. Finally, a new launch date was set for February 20th.
Newspaper and TV reporters, along with TV crews, await the launch of John Glenn early on the morning of February 20th, 1962. At the time this picture was taken, the skies were partly overcast but would clear in time for Glenn to be launched that day.
At 4:30 A.M., Glenn and his backup pilot Scott Carpenter were awakened. After a last physical checkout, in which Glenn was prnounced "ready to go", he, Carpenter, and several other astronauts and NASA officials had a breakfast of steak and eggs, the traditional pre-launch meal of every American astronaut since the beginning in 1961. After breakfast, Glenn put on (with help from a couple of NASA technicians) his space suit, which he would need while travelling through the airless void of outer space.
John Glenn, now in his space suit, leaves the crew quarters in Hangar "S" for the ride out to the launch pad.
Just prior to 6 A.M. (a little more than two hours prior to the scheduled blastoff time of 8 A.M.), Glenn takes the short ride from Hangar "S" to launch pad 14. There, he climbs into an elevator and rides up the gantry tower to the second-to-top level. It is here that he is to climb into his spacecraft.
John Glenn climbs into the Friendship 7 capsule.
After Glenn was inserted into his capsule, the hatch was sealed. To do so involved tightening dozens of bolts, and one of them malfunctions, necessitating a "hold" in the countdown. The "hold" will last over an hour because in addition, one of the microphones in Glenn's helmet needs to be replaced, and the skies need to clear. Eventually, the hatch is sealed, Glenn's helmet mike is replaced, the skies clear, and the countdown resumes. But when is all is said and done, Friendship 7's blastoff will be nearly two hours behind schedule.
Photo taken of Friendship 7 atop it's Atlas booster from the gantry as it's rolled away. The capsule (excluding the escape tower and the adapter that connects it to the rocket) is only 6 feet in diameter and 9 feet tall! John Glenn is inside this capsule, and liftoff is about 45 minutes away.
Around 9 A.M., the gantry crane rolls away revealing the Atlas rocket and Friendship 7 capsule. Although the rocket has a silver-colored skin in the above photo, the venting of liquid oxygen during fueling will cause most of the rocket's skin to turn to a white color, thanks to the ice that accumulates around it. By this time, millions are looking to get to the first TV set they can find to watch the launch. In some warm-weather sunbelt cities, a passerby walking down the street can hear the voice of TV newsman Walter Cronkite coming out of almost every open window, reporting on the countdown.
Liftoff! It is 9:47 A.M., Eastern Standard Time.
Finally, at 9:47 A.M., the final seconds of the countdown tick-off. Over loudspeakers at the Cape and tens of millions of TV sets across the nation, Colonel John "Shorty" Powers, a NASA public-affairs officer who handled the public-address announcements at the Cape, counts down the final seconds-"10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Zero--Ignition---Liftoff!". The Atlas rocket moves off it's launch pad, at first slowly, then gaining speed by the second. It will take only about five minutes for the rocket to boost Friendship 7 from a speed of zero to a speed of 17,500 miles per hour.
John Glenn inside Friendship 7 during the flight. This photo was taken by a remote-control camera inside the spacecraft.
While the load of G-forces during the launch was punishing, Glenn found the zero-gravity that enveloped him after he was in orbit to be a most enjoyable experience. But there wasn's much time for Glenn to enjoy the ride. He had a number of experiements to conduct, and less than 5 hours to conduct them.
The food that John Glenn took with him into orbit. He had time to have one meal in space. The food is packed into pouches. Due to zero-gravity conditions, Glenn had to eat the food right out of the pouches!
A photo of the earth, taken by John Glenn during the flight of Friendship 7
Sunset as seen from orbit, photographed by John Glenn during his flight in Friendship 7.
For the first orbit-and-a-half, everything is as smooth as it could possibly be. But late in the second orbit, Mission Control receives an omnious signal from Friendship 7. If the signal is accurate, it means that the capsule's "landing bag" has prematurely deployed. At the moment, it's not a major crisis since the landing bag and heat shield are held in place by the retrorocket pack and the straps that hold the retros onto the rest of the spacecraft. But if the retropack is jettisoned during re-entry, as is normally the procedure, the heat shield could slip away, and Friendship 7 could be incinnerated upon re-entry, killing Glenn.
Mission Control during the flight of Friendship 7. At the time this photo was taken, the spacecraft was east of Austrailia, late in it's first orbit of the earth.
Mission Control, at that time located at the Cape (just a mile or so from the pad where Glenn took off) determines that when Glenn re-enters the earth's atmosphere, that he keep his retororocket pack on instead of jettisoning it. The theory is that the straps and the retropack will hold the heat shield in place until such time as the forces of re-entry will likewise keep the heat shield in place--saving the capsule and Glenn's life.
After 4 hours and 55 minutes in space, and three orbits of the earth, John Glenn and "Friendship 7" splash down in the Atlantic Ocean.
(Note: No actual photo was taken of Friendship 7's splashdown. This is a photo of a splashdown of a later Mercury orbital flight. However, the splashdown of Friendship 7 looked similar to the one in this photo)
The plan to keep the retropack on through re-entry keeps the heat shield in place, and Glenn makes it through re-entry just fine. When in radio range of Mission Control, after re-entry but just prior to splashdown, Glenn reports "Boy, that was a real fireball!". It was later determined that the telemetry signal indicating to the ground that the landing bag had deployed was in fact erroroneous---and that the landing bag didn't deploy until it should have, just before splashdown. After three orbits, four hours and 55 minutes of flight, Friendship 7 splashes down into the Western Atlantic at 2:42 P.M., Eastern time. The first American to try to orbit the earth had made it home safely.
Friendship 7 on the water, waiting to be recovered.
Since this was the first time an American astronaut had come back from an orbit of the earth, there was no telling where John Glenn would land. For this reason, there were a large number of ships located in various parts of the Atlantic, to insure that Glenn would be rescued quickly regardless of where he splashed down. Although Friendship 7 splashed down some 50 miles away from the ideal landing point (where the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Randolph was waiting), he was just five miles from the destroyer U.S.S. Noa. The Noa got the call to recover Glenn. Mindful that fellow astronaut Virgil "Gus" Grissom had barely escaped drowning the previous summer when the hatch on his capsule prematurely blew (causing the capsule to fill with water and sink, forcing Grissom to quickly escape into the water), Glenn decides to remain inside Friendship 7 until it's hoisted aboard the Noa.
Glenn inspects his capsule on the deck of the U.S.S. Noa after returning to earth.
Within an hour of splashdown, Friendship 7 is hoisted onto the deck of the U.S.S. Noa. Glenn opens the hatch, and climbs out a national hero. Shortly after the photo above was taken, he took a helicopter ride to the carrier Randolph, and from there, a flight to Grand Bahama Island, and then, back to the Cape. Over the next several weeks, Glenn is honored in several cities with big parades (including one in New York City which still holds records for the largest crowd to ever see a New York parade and for the most amount of "tickertape" that has to be cleaned from the streets) and a speech to a joint session of Congress. He becomes the personification of the space program, and millions of voters urge their Congressmen to appropriate for NASA "whatever it takes" to get an American on the moon ---and to do it before the Russians.
Glenn's flight captured the imagination of the entire free world, and it is safe to say that the national euphoria that accompanied it was a major reason that Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin were able to land and walk on the moon the night of July 20th, 1969.
Seldom does one man get a second chance to once again become a national hero. But for John Glenn, that chance occured at 2:19 P.M. (Eastern time, 1919 GMT/UTC) on Thursday, October 29th, when became one of seven astronauts launched into orbit onboard the space shuttle Discovery. Glenn and his crewmates safely returned to earth at 12:04 P.M. (Eastern time, 1704 GMT/UTC) on Saturday, November 7th, making a perfect landing on the special runway at Cape Canaveral built specifically for shuttle landings.
Congratulations, John Glenn (and your crewmates) for a job well done!!