John Herschel Glenn, Jr. Was a former United States Marine Corps pilot, astronaut and United States senator who was the first American to orbit the Earth and third American in space. Glenn was a Marine Corps fighter pilot before joining NASA's Mercury program as a member of NASA's original astronaut group. John Glenn, the first U.S. Astronaut to orbit Earth, completing three orbits in 1962. (Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space, had made a single orbit of Earth in 1961.) Glenn also served in the U.S. Senate from 1975 to 1999. Learn more about Glenn and his accomplishments in this article.

John Glenn Orbit Year

Includes illustrations. Photographic plates, illustrations, map Project Mercury, the first human spaceflight program of the United States from 1959 through 1963 with the goal of putting a human in orbit around the Earth. The Mercury-Atlas 6 flight on February 20, 1962, was the first American flight to achieve this goal. Her late husband of 73 years, John Glenn, was the first American to orbit the Earth, circling it three times in 1962. He was one of the famed Mercury Seven astronauts immortalized in Tom Wolfe’s. John Glenn becomes first American to orbit Earth From Cape Canaveral, Florida, John Herschel Glenn Jr. Is successfully launched into space aboard the Friendship 7 spacecraft on the first orbital.

February 20, 1962JPEG

Fifty years ago, on February 20, 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. He also was one of the first humans to study the planet from space.

Just 5 minutes and 44 seconds after launch, Glenn offered his first words about the view from his porthole: “This is Friendship 7. Can see clear back; a big cloud pattern way back across towards the Cape. Beautiful sight.”

Three hours later, at the beginning of his third orbit, Glenn photographed this panoramic view of Florida from the Georgia border (right, under clouds) to just north of Cape Canaveral. His American homeland was 162 miles (260 kilometers) below. “I have the Cape in sight down there,” he noted to mission controllers. “It looks real fine from up here. I can see the whole state of Florida just laid out like on a map. Beautiful.”

Glenn rocketed into space atop an Atlas rocket in a spacecraft dubbed Friendship 7. He reached a speed of 17,500 miles per hour as he made three orbits and traveled 75,679 miles in just under five hours. Pokemon pearl download for mac. Along the way, he saw a dust storm and fires in Africa. He observed the glow of moonlight on the cloud tops and the ocean. He saw the wake of a ship and the different colored waters of the Gulf Stream. He saw a “brilliant blue band” on the horizon—the thin, fragile atmosphere of Earth.

In his official report written after the mission, he offered some highlights:

It was surprising how much of the earth's surface was covered by clouds..The different types of clouds—vertical developments, stratus clouds, and cumulus clouds—are readily distinguished..Only a few land areas were visible during the flight because of the cloud cover..

As I came across the United States, I could see New Orleans, Charleston, and Savannah very clearly. I could also see rivers and lakes. I think the best view I had of any land area during the flight was the clear desert region around El Paso on the second pass across the United States. I could see the colors of the desert and the irrigated area north of El Paso.

Just off the east coast of Africa were two large storm areas. Weather Bureau scientists had wondered whether lightning could be seen on the night side, and it certainly can..Lightning could be seen flashing back and forth between the clouds, but most prominent were lightning flashes within thunderheads, illuminating them like light bulbs.

After splashing back down in the Atlantic Ocean near Grand Turk Island, Glenn described his flight with understated eloquence: “It was quite a day. I'm not sure what you can say about a day in which you see four beautiful sunsets in one day, but it's pretty interesting.”

NASA Photograph S62-06009 by John Glenn. Caption by Michael Carlowicz.

John Glenn, a former NASA astronaut who became the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962, died Thursday at the age of 95, and almost immediately, people started sharing their memories and thoughts about the American hero.

One of those people was Katherine Johnson, the 'human computer' who helped check and invent the math that sent Glenn into orbit and brought him back home during his first flight decades ago.

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'A good man has left Earth for the last time. John Glenn's life will long be remembered for his time in space, his courage and his service to all Americans,' Johnson said in a statement Friday.

Johnson's life is the subject of the new movie Hidden Figures Obs studio download for mac. , which chronicles her work at NASA as well as the work of Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson — two other African-American 'human computers' who left a mark on the space agency but have not been widely celebrated until now.

John Glenn Orbit Earth

NASA credits Johnson (played by Taraji P. Henson) with 'verifying the calculations made by early electronic computers of John Glenn’s 1962 launch to orbit and the 1969 Apollo 11 trajectory to the moon.'

John Glenn Orbited The Earth

Glen Powell, the actor who plays Glenn in Hidden Figures, also paid tribute to Glenn's life on Twitter.

Now THAT is how you live a life! Godspeed, John Glenn. A true gentleman who humbly touched the stars and made us believe in the impossible.

— Glen Powell (@glenpowell) December 8, 2016

In Hidden Figures, Johnson — who faces horrible discrimination due to her status as an African-American woman working in a white male space in the 1960s — is key to NASA Langley's goal of putting Glenn into orbit after the Soviet Union sent Yuri Gagarin up months before.

Hidden Figures will be released in theaters across the U.S. on Jan. 6, with limited release starting Christmas Day.

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