Obituary: Astronaut and US Senator John Herschel Glenn 18 July 1921 - 8 December 2016
And then there were none ...
The last surviving Project Mercury astronaut, John Glenn, died last night at the age of 95.
America knew all their names in the early 1960s: Shepard, Grissom, Glenn, Carpenter, Schirra, Cooper, Slayton. They were iconic heroes; test pilots and super A-type personalities that craved the opportunity to push flight envelopes and haul in the Soviet Union in the space race. From 1958 to 1962, they were not only explorers, but symbols of the western world's struggle against the spread of communism.
They were a team of seven, and every space capsule that went up carried that number alongside its name. There were only six Mercury flights; Deke Slayton the only one of the seven never to go into space alone.
Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth in February 1962, when he flew his space capsule Friendship 7 for three orbits. The two prior Mercury flights–Alan Shepard in Freedom 7 and Gus Grissom in Liberty Bell 7–had been sub-orbital.
Glenn passed over Perth during his four-hour flight, prompting the people of the city to turn on all available lights as a greeting. They did it again in 1998 when Glenn was aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery.
John Herschel Glenn was one of several astronauts born in the state of Ohio. He served in WWII flying Corsairs in the Pacific with the US Marines and again in Korea flying F9F Panthers. After that came a stint as a test pilot at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, and a record for being the first person to make a supersonic flight across America, a feat he completed in a Vought F8U Crusader. It made him an instant celebrity in the USA.
It made Glenn a natural candidate for the US manned space program, which started in 1958. Of the 508 pilots who applied, only seven were chosen, of which John Glenn was one.
After the flight of the Friendship 7, Glenn became an American icon: a boy from small-town USA, war hero, test pilot, astronaut; a clean-cut example of what conservative post-war America wanted all their sons to be.
Indeed, he became an asset that America was not prepared to risk. Despite pleas for another flight assignment, Glenn was shuffled to one side and asked to take over astronaut training. In his memoir, Glenn recalls being told that his friend, President John F Kennedy didn't want him in space again; the USA didn't want to lose its greatest hero, and space flight was still very dangerous. The same fate would later befall the crew of Apollo 11.
He left the space program in 1964 and retired from the US Marines in 1965, which freed him up to pursue a political career. Although he had opportunites to enter the business world, he'd served his country at the highest levels all his life and saw a seat in the US Senate as being a continuation of that service.
His first attempt at office stalled when he fell in a bathroom during the campaign and had to withdraw. Even he saw the irony of having survived two wars and a space flight only to be brought down by slipping on a bath mat.
Glenn eventually made it to the US Senate in 1974, where he served until 1999. The pivotal point in his political career came in 1984, when he tried to secure the Democratic nomination for US President to go up against Ronald Reagan. He withdrew from the race when the Primary returns showed he couldn't overtake Walter Mondale. This was despite an expected boost in popularity from the movie The Right Stuff, of which Glenn would later say "could have been better titled Laurel and Hardy go to Space."
But it would seem Glenn never took his eyes off the stars. He had sat earth-bound as man walked on the moon (including fellow Mercury astronaut Shepard), linked up with the Soviets in the Apollo-Soyuz project (crewed by fellow Mercury astronaut Slayton) and developed the Space Transportation System, better known as the Space Shuttle.
He had to go back despite his advancing years, and after a campaign of lobbying, was able to pull on a space suit once again. In 1998, he rode the Space Shuttle Discovery on the STS-95 mission as a payload specialist. The idea was to use Glenn to study the effects of space flight and weightlessness on the elderly. Senator Glenn was 77 at the time. It had been 36 years since the mission of Friendship 7.
John Glenn left his mark on the country and the world as a fighter pilot, astronaut and politician. After his final retirement from a life of service, he and wife Annie helped found the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy at Ohio State University, and in March 2016, Columbus International Airport was re-named after him, a massive honour once you remember that Neil Armstrong was also born in Ohio.
But it was as a member of the Mercury Seven that Glenn will be best remembered, so entrenched is his name in the history of the manned space program.
On 10 October 2013, Scott Carpenter, the pilot of Aurora 7 died at the age of 88, leaving Glenn as the sole surviving connection to the Mercury Seven.
With John Glenn leaving earth forever last night, there are now none of America's original astronaut heroes left. Even the ranks of the subsequent Gemini and Apollo astronauts are getting thinner. He died at a time of hiatus for the US manned space program; the last Space Shuttle flew in 2011. However, with Project Orion just starting to kick off, the coffers of space heroes will soon be replenished once again.
The Mercury Seven
Alan Shepard 18/11/23 - 21/7/98: Freedom 7 and Apollo 14. The only one of the seven to walk on the moon.
Virgil "Gus" Grissom 3/4/26 - 27/1/67: Liberty Bell 7, Gemini 3, died in a launch-pad fire on Apollo 1
John Glenn 18/7/21 - 8/12/16: Friendship 7 and STS-95 Space Shuttle Discovery
Scott Carpenter 1/5/25 - 10/10/13: Aurora 7
Walter Schirra 12/3/23 - 3/5/07: Sigma 7, Gemini 6 and Apollo 7
Gordon Cooper 6/3/27 - 4/10/04: Faith 7 and Gemini 5
Deke Slayton 1/3/24 - 13/6/93: Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. Slayton was to have flown the fourth Mercury flight Delta 7, but was grounded with heart problems.