Documentary of Glenn’s flight

50 years ago to the day on 20 February 1962, John Glenn became the first American in orbit, but not the first in space... We would reiterate that on 12 April 1961, Yuri Gagarin earned the title of the first man in space whilst completing an orbit of the Earth (see this feature). This exploit demonstrated the Soviet Union’s lead as regards space flights. In fact, just a few weeks later on 5 May 1961, it was American Alan Shepard’s turn to go into space (see this other feature), but without going into orbit. His was a suborbital flight as his spaceship reached an altitude of 187.5 km before falling back down into the Atlantic Ocean, 480 km off the coasts of Florida from where he had blasted off. The Soviet lead was then to remain intact as although on 2 July 1961 American Gus Grissom made another suborbital flight, Soviet Gherman Titov successfully orbited the Earth 17 times on 7 August of the same year. It was not, therefore, until 20 February 1962 that NASA demonstrated its orbital human space flight ability with the flight of John Glenn aboard a Mercury capsule dubbed Friendship 7 (3 orbits of the Earth). To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of this major date for America, NASA has put together a comprehensive documentary which reiterates the context of the era and includes several interviews including one with the astronaut. You can see it below (length: 25 minutes).



The end of this documentary obviously highlights John Glenn’s second flight, when, in November 1998, he took part in space shuttle Discovery’s STS-95 mission. At the age of 77, John Glenn became the oldest man to go into space; a record that still stands.

Published on 20 February 2012