Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 17, 1992 TAG: 9202170063
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A2 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: MARCIA DUNN ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. LENGTH: Medium
SPACE FLIGHT SELDOM OFF GLENN'S MIND
John Glenn's life has been crammed with high points - flying combat, serving in the Senate, marrying his high school sweetheart. Still, he can't stop reliving that February morning 30 years ago when he became the first American to orbit the Earth.People won't let him.
"It's a rare day that goes by that someone doesn't ask or comment about the space days," the 70-year-old senator said in a recent interview. "I've recalled it so often, almost daily, that it really seems to be that the whole thing was a month ago."
Glenn was a Marine lieutenant colonel and former test pilot when he circled Earth three times in Friendship 7 on Feb. 20, 1962 - 30 years ago Thursday. He returned to a hero's welcome.
Only two other people had ever orbited Earth - Russians Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961, and Gherman Titov on a two-day mission that August. The first two Americans in space, Alan Shepard and Virgil "Gus" Grissom, flew suborbital hops.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has sent astronauts into orbit safely 72 times since Glenn's four-hour, 55-minute, 23-second excursion, his only space flight. He has been envious each time.
"I'd like to go up again," Glenn said. "I already told them, and I was only half joking, that when they get around to doing a geriatric study, they've already got a baseline on me. I'm available."
Glenn, like the six other original Mercury astronauts, endured rigorous physical and psychological testing.
There was the danger of liftoff. Atlas rockets had blasted off from Cape Canaveral's Complex 14 three times with unmanned Mercury craft, and twice had exploded. Modifications were made, and a chimpanzee named Enos rode an Atlas into orbit in November 1961. Glenn's flight followed, after 10 launch delays.
There was the uncertainty of space travel. Many doctors questioned whether humans could function in weightlessness.
Glenn proved humans could. Trouble with the automatic system forced Glenn to take manual control of his ship, allowing him to stay up for the intended three orbits.
Glenn remembers the awesome views of Earth as his bell-shaped capsule - 9 1/2 feet high and 6 feet wide at the base - whizzed through space at 17,500 mph.
He remembers the motion sickness medicine, which he thankfully didn't need, and the tubes of soupy applesauce and potatoes and gravy, which he dutifully ate and proved people could swallow in space.
He remembers the tiny eye charts in his capsule, which he successfully read and proved vision doesn't deteriorate in weightlessness.
Most of all, he remembers the sense of achievement he felt in accomplishing "the things we set out to do."
"The fact that he went around the world and he had essentially no problems is mind-boggling," said astronaut Charles Bolden Jr., commander of NASA's next shuttle flight, scheduled for March. "It was a big deal then. It's still a big deal."
Glenn left the astronaut corps in 1964. He was the oldest of the Mercury astronauts and figured it would be "wishful thinking" to stick around for the Apollo program and a chance to go to the moon.
He ran for the Senate as a Democrat from Ohio and was elected on his third try, in 1974. He remains a strong proponent of the space program, even though NASA's achievements no longer rivet the world and the race with the Russians is over.
"You have to analyze what the space program is all about. It does not consist solely of big, spectacular first events like my flight was, or Alan Shepard's before mine, or landing on the moon," Glenn said.
"First-time events are the ones that are remembered. But the reason we have a space program is to do very basic fundamental research," he said.
Glenn has few mementos of those days, mostly flight manuals and personal notes. Burglars took medals and awards from his home a decade ago, as well as a gold lapel pin he wore in orbit and gave to his wife, Annie.
His Friendship 7 capsule is on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington. The launch complex is now a fuel storage area barricaded by a chain-link fence and barbed wire. Tour buses go only as far as the entrance to the complex, where a plaque bearing an almost-life-size casting of Glenn's head notes:
"Project Mercury was a vital step on man's journey to the moon."