50th anniversary of John Glenn's flight.

[SkyMan]

Today, 2/20/12, is the 50th anniversary of John Glenn's flight. For those of you that do not know who he is, he was the first American to orbit the earth. He flew in a Mercury spacecraft, named Friendship 7, that was launched on an Atlas booster. He circled the Earth 3 times in roughly 4.5 hours. Here's a piece of his booster that was found in eastern Africa and given to Deke Slayton (1 of the Mercury 7 astronauts, and the head of the astronaut office for ~20 years). I was lucky enough to win this item about 4 years ago. If you've got a John Glenn or Friendship 7 related item, or a coin from 1962, please post it.

 

 

 

[Dcoin]

Cheers to a true American hero!

 

 

[rrantique]

Cheers to a true American hero!

 

 

[Buffalo Head]

I remember watching this on TV at school, black & white of course. I was 10

years old....Joe

 

[breakdown-migration]

Glenn was kind of the ultimate Boy Scout type. Straight arrow among a lot of cowboy-type fighter pilots that were the early astronauts. I'm not a collector of space memorabilia like SkyMan but i love that slice of history and greatly admire those men and their courage.

[FishyOne]

NASA is selling very nice medallions made with metal that was flown to the moon on Apollo missions. They are on sale for $14.95 each and very cool! I have one and they are large 44mm and well made. Very light though! Search the link below and you'll find a variety of missions to choose from!

 

The Space Store

 

[johnny9434]

I wonder what he has to say bout today's NASA and how it is being dealt with by (the so called) government? you know budget cuts and all

[Oldtrader3]

I was an airframe structures engineer for several years in the 1960's. I started in that field just after (1965) John Glenn made his maiden Mercury voyage. When I think back about the level of controls technology and computer modeling that was being employed at that time and remember looking carefuly over the controls of the Mercury capsule at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. I am always amazed that he made it through that voyage. That man has my undying respect for having the stones to do it! All fo them in fact. I also worked on a small part of the Apollo 11 project a few years later and feel the same way about it. They "had what it takes"