one important concept that you can
associate with John Glenn is related to
the term aerospace the Air Force coined
the term aerospace but John Glenn was
one of those guys who personified the
term aerospace we have some objects
associated with his 1962 orbital flight
in the Mercury program
Glenn flew aboard mercury atlas six is
spacecraft he named friendship seven and
we have some objects that he took with
him some film canisters things to hold
things socks over shoes and so on and
the reason we have them here is because
Glenn has a connection with the Air
Force during that flight of course the
Atlas booster came from an Air Force
ballistic missile program so astronauts
riding on top of this Air Force missile
into orbit was a significant moment not
only for the space program but for the
Air Force as well blend served as an Air
Force exchange pilot served in the
Korean War flying alongside air force
pilots and served as a combat pilot
their 27 missions with air force pilots
and down three MiG's along the way the
mercury spacecraft that we have on loan
is a flight rated vehicle it never flew
in space but it was made to fly in space
it actually provided parts for the last
mercury mission and the things you can
learn from looking at this vehicle is
first of all how tiny it is this is a
tiny little vehicle the astronaut inside
could barely move and didn't really have
to move very much because the purpose of
that vehicle was to prove that we could
send a person into space in the case of
John Glenn having orbit the Earth a
couple times control the spacecraft and
come back safely
you can see this spacecraft on loan from
the Smithsonian
in the museum's space gallery when he
was 77 years old
serving as an Ohio senator he went back
to space to become the oldest person
ever to fly in space if you go to see
our space shuttle crew compartment
trainer you can see where John Glenn did
some of his training for that mission
because all space shuttle astronauts
trained in our crew compartment trainer
it's the front part of our space shuttle
exhibit so you can go and see where he
trained the purpose of his spaceflight
on sts 95 space shuttle flight in 1998
was to study the effects of spaceflight
on aging so he volunteered himself as an
aging person to go up and go into orbit
for nine days and conduct a bunch of
experiments and so there's yet another
John Glenn example of public service
he's an aviator an astronaut a senator
and then an astronaut again he's
thatthat's why John Glenn is a hero he
has done all this stuff on behalf of the
public
I heard about the only person around it
doesn't have TV coverage of the face and
then he got the black up now you're
gonna be getting a TV picture now they
are gay
Victor
one all
bad way