‘American Legend’ Returned to Orbit Aboard Shuttle Discovery

By Bob Granath

“Liftoff of six astronaut heroes and one American legend,” said NASA Public Affairs commentator, Lisa Malone, as the Space Shuttle Discovery launched in late 1998. America’s quintessential hero, John Glenn, was returning to space 36 years after he made history as the first of his compatriots to reach Earth orbit.

Born in Cambridge, Ohio, Glenn served in the U.S. Marine Corps, flying 59 combat missions in World War II. During the Korean conflict, he flew another 90. In the last nine days of fighting in Korea, Glenn downed three MiGs fighters in combat along the Yalu River. As a test pilot, Glenn set a transcontinental speed record for a jet aircraft in 1957.

When NASA was formed the next year, one of its primary tasks was to select pilots to serve as the nation’s first spacemen. During the April 9, 1959, news conference that introduced the Mercury astronauts, the seven military pilots discussed their views on the fledgling space program.

Responding to a reporter’s question, Glenn compared Project Mercury to the Wright Brothers’ first powered aircraft flight in North Carolina in 1903.

“My feelings are that this whole project with regard to space is like the Wright Brothers standing at Kitty Hawk about 50 years ago, with Orville and Wilbur pitching a coin to see who was going to shove the other one off the hill,” he said. “I think we stand on the verge of something as big and as expansive as that.”

The Soviet Union beat the United States with the first Earth orbiting satellite, Sputnik, and again with the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin.

Fellow Mercury astronauts Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom followed with sub-orbital flights. But Glenn was the first to reach orbit as did Gagarin.

Read more about John Glenn’s Project Mercury spaceflight.

Following Glenn’s three orbits totaling almost five hours in space, the U.S. Marine Corps colonel returned to a hero’s welcome. There was a motorcade in the streets of Cocoa Beach, Florida near the Cape Canaveral launch site. Crowds greeted Glenn in New York City and he was honored by President John F. Kennedy.

Glenn resigned from NASA on Jan. 16, 1964. A decade later, he was elected to the U.S. Senate from his home state of Ohio. Glenn’s time in the Senate included a bid for the presidency in 1984.

After serving more than 24 years in Congress, he announced that he would not seek re-election in the 1998 fall campaign. Instead, he was given an opportunity to return to orbit as a payload specialist with the STS-95 crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery.

On Oct. 29, 1998, Glenn launched as part of a seven-person team that included an international crew. At the age of 77, he also was the oldest person at the time to fly in space.

Glenn’s record held until recently when 82-year-old aviator Wally Funk flew aboard a Blue Origin suborbital trip to space on July 20, 2021. That mark soon was broken by actor William Shatner (Star Trek’s Capt. James Kirk) at age 90 on Oct. 13, 2021. However, Glenn remains the oldest person to orbit the Earth.

The STS-95 mission commander was Curt Brown, along with pilot Steve Lindsey and mission specialists Stephen Robinson and Scott Parazynski, all of NASA. European Space Agency astronaut Pedro Duque, of Spain also served as a mission specialist. There were two payload specialists, Chiaki Mukai of the Japanese Space Agency and Glenn.

The primary objectives included conducting a variety of science experiments in the pressurized Spacehab module in the shuttle’s payload bay. The crew also deployed and retrieved a Spartan free-flying satellite.

Glenn’s flight provided NASA with an opportunity to gain valuable data on the effects of weightlessness on a person 36 years apart. It easily was the longest length of time between flights by the same person. Medical data also was gathered on the effects of spaceflight and weightlessness on the elderly.

Recalling their greeting to Glenn during his 1962 flight aboard Friendship 7, the people of Perth and Rockingham, Australia, turned on municipal city and home lights while the Space Shuttle orbited overhead.

Discovery and its crew returned to Earth touching down at NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility on Nov. 7, 1998. Glenn was welcomed by then agency Administrator Dan Goldin.

Over the years, Glenn collected many awards and accolades. In May 1990, he and the other six Mercury astronauts became the charter class of the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame. During a ceremony at the White House on May 29, 2012, President Barack Obama awarded Glenn the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Glenn’s last visit to Florida’s Space Coast took place in February 2012. Astronaut Scott Carpenter joined him in activities celebrating the 50th anniversary of the nation’s first orbital spaceflights. On May 24, 1962, Carpenter also flew a three-orbit Mercury mission.

Looking back on the early days of human spaceflight, Glenn explained that preparation was the key to success.

“You became the best-trained person you could be and that’s what we did,” he said.

Glenn noted that the challenge of spaceflight continues to depend on today’s designers and engineers to keep making strides along with the thousands of individuals working as a team in America’s space program.

“These things depend on people,” Glenn said. “Nothing’s going to happen unless you have the people to do it.”

Glenn died Dec. 8, 2016, at the age of 95. He was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.

Glenn received praise from around the world. Typical were comments by NASA flight director and director of Mission Operations, Gene Kranz, in his 2000 book, Failure is Not an Option. He described his impressions of America’s first person to orbit the Earth.

”He spoke of God and country and the flag and the bravery of his fellow astronauts,” Kranz wrote. “Glenn simply was an old-fashioned, star-spangled hero.”

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