BREAKING: American Hero John Glenn dead at 95

American Hero John Glenn has passed away today at the age of 95:

Here’s more about Glenn:

BUZZFEED – Godspeed, once more, John Glenn. The astronaut whose circling of the Earth restored US pride at the dawn of the moon race, has died at age 95, Ohio Governor John Kasich said.

He was the first American to orbit the Earth, in the Friendship 7 mission in 1962, and the oldest man to ever fly into space, aboard the the space shuttle Discovery in 1998, while still a US Senator.

Born in Cambridge, Ohio, Glenn enlisted in the Naval Aviation Cadet Program after Pearl Harbor, eventually transferring to the US Marines and flying combat missions during World War II. During the Korean War, he shot down three MiG-15 fighter jets days ahead of the 1953 armistice. In 1957, he made the world’s first supersonic transcontinental flight, bringing him an early taste of fame that prepared him better than his colleagues for his NASA experience.

He joined the newly-created NASA in 1958, at the dawn of the space age, selected for the first “Mercury 7” cadre of astronauts. His 1962 orbital flight was the third U.S. launch into space, coming after the first sub-orbital flights by Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom. But it was the big one, triggering an outsized ticker tape parade that staggered even hardened New Yorkers with its adulation from a crowd of 4 million people.

“Out in the middle of the intersections were the policemen, the policemen they had heard about, New York’s Finest, big tough looking men in blue greatcoats—and they were crying!” wrote Tom Wolfe in his history of the first astronauts, The Right Stuff.

John Glenn “is an inspiration to all Americans,” President John Kennedy said in a nationwide address after the landing. Glenn was seen as the most humble and aw-shucks of the first set of astronauts, famously cautioning them about any illicit behaviour that might reflect badly on NASA. He retired from the space agency in 1964.

You can continue reading about his great legacy here


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