Biography of Astronaut John Glenn, Jr

After receiving his private pilots license while studying at Muskingum College, John Glenn enlisted in the US Navy in March 1942 as an aviation cadet. After graduation from the Naval Aviation Cadet program in 1943 he was reassigned to the US Marine Corps. John Glenn flew 59 combat missions during World War II and an additional 63 combat missions during Korea. Glenn also flew 27 missions with the US Air Force in a pilot exchange program.

After returning home from the war John Glenn made his way to the Naval Air Test Center where he attended the Test Pilot school after which he began testing high altitude weaponry.

John Glenn set the record on July 16, 1957 for fastest transcontinental flight from New York to Las Angeles. This was the first supersonic transcontinental flight and it took 3 hours and 23 minutes to complete.

Less than two years after the historic flight Glenn made history again as NASA selected him to be one of its first seven Mercury astronauts in April 9, 1959.

On February 20, 1962 Astronaut John Glenn became the third American to fly into space. Flying 162 miles above the earth at 17,500 MPH the astronaut spent 4 hours and 55 minutes in space. Aboard the Friendship 7 spacecraft Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth which he did three times before landing. Two previous Mercury flights made by astronauts Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom were only suborbital flights and Yuri Gagarin was the first human to orbit the Earth on April 12, 1961.

Glenn's Mercury mission was a landmark for NASA that overshadowed both previous flights made by fellow Mercury astronauts and today it is a common misconception that John Glenn was actually the first American in space.

Astronaut John Glenn retired from NASA on January 16, 1964. On January 1, 1965 at the rank of Colonel, Glenn also retired from the Marine Corps. He became a successful businessman in the private sector and in 1974 he won his bid for a seat in the Senate representing his home state of Ohio. While serving in the Senate Glenn received a tremendous opportunity to reunite with NASA and join mission STS 95 aboard the space shuttle Discover in 1998.

As his second flight into space blasted off on October 29, 1998 John Glenn became the oldest man in space at the age of 77. He spent approximately 9 days in space doing research on spaceflight's impact on age. Total time spent in space is 218 hours.