John H. Glenn Jr. - The right Stuff - twice | Eastern North Carolina Now

   At the risk of over saturation the John Glenn passing, I offer this second part of his story. I take particular interest in the fact that at 77 he was still gung-ho. At merely 71, I needed to remind myself that life is only over when either you give up or they lower your casket. Here is the first article.   Bobby Tony

    There are those that will say his return to space in 1998 at the age of 77 was a gimmick or special treatment. Reasonable people can disagree about that but you must factor in the history. John Kennedy directed NASA to take John off flight status as he was deemed too valuable a personification of the space program to risk death on another flight. John continued to train and when he finally learned he would not be going back to space, he resigned from NASA and started his public career as a politician.

    It was perhaps another twist of the times that image overtook the career of this astronaut. He accepted the choice and moved into the next phase of life, but somewhere deep inside, I am sure he felt cheated by the system that he invested so much of his efforts into the program. Conceivably, it was appropriate that the space program return some of his payments in time, energy, and training as recognition not for his status as a Senator but as an astronaut denied his recompense for dedication. Once again, it could be just a chance for NASA to reinvigorate its image.

    Regardless of the motive, John deserved that second flight if for no other reason than his membership of the original seven (7) Mercury astronauts; five of which had a second helping of space flight

Malcolm Scott Carpenter (1925-2013), U.S. Navy (1 flight)

    MA-7 (Aurora 7) - May 1962 - Second orbital Mercury mission

Leroy Gordon (Gordo) Cooper Jr. (1927-2004), U.S. Air Force (2 flights)

    MA-9 (Faith 7) - May 1963 - Final Mercury mission, first American mission to last more than a day; Cooper became the last American who flew in space alone

    Gemini 5 - August 1965 - Command Pilot - First eight-day space mission, first use of fuel cells

John Herschel Glenn Jr. (1921-2016), U.S. Marine Corps (2 flights)

    MA-6 (Friendship 7) - February 1962 - First orbital Mercury flight; Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth

    STS-95 Discovery - October 1998 - Payload Specialist - Spacelab mission, Spartan 201 release; Glenn became the oldest person in space

Virgil Ivan (Gus) Grissom (1926-1967), U.S. Air Force (2 flights)

    MR-4 (Liberty Bell 7) - July 1961 - Final suborbital Mercury flight; Liberty Bell 7 sank after splashdown and was not retrieved until 1999

    Gemini 3 - March 1965 - Command Pilot - First manned Gemini mission, first manned mission to change orbital plane; Grissom became the first person to be launched into space twice

    Apollo 1 - January 1967 - Commander - Killed in a fire during a launch pad test one month before the launch

Walter Marty (Wally) Schirra Jr. (1923-2007), U.S. Navy (3 flights)

    MA-8 (Sigma 7) - October 1962 - Third orbital Mercury flight

    Gemini 6A - December 1965 - Command Pilot - First rendezvous in space, with Gemini 7

    Apollo 7 - October 1968 - Commander - First manned Apollo mission; Schirra became the first person to be launched into space three times and the only person to fly Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions

Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. (1923-1998), U.S. Navy (2 flights)

    MR-3 (Freedom 7) - May 1961 - First manned Mercury flight; Shepard became the first American in space

    Apollo 14 - January 1971 - Commander - Third manned lunar landing; fifth man to walk on the Moon

Donald Kent (Deke) Slayton (1924-1993), U.S. Air Force (1 flight)

    Apollo-Soyuz Test Project - July 1975 - Docking Module Pilot - First joint American-Soviet space mission, first docking of an American and Russian spacecraft
    The Mercury Seven


Pictures sourced NASA