John Glenn - the first American to fly around the Earth
38-year-old Colonel John Herschel Glenn was enlisted in the squad of the first NASA astronauts in 1959, among other seven best American pilots. He had 149 battles during the Second World War and the Korean War and the first non-stop flight across the United States on a supersonic aircraft.
Before Glenn, four people visited space - Soviet cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and German Titov, Americans Alan Shepard and Virgil Grissom. However, unlike the Soviet cosmonauts, both Americans carried out only suborbital flights.
On February 20, 1962, Glenn became the first American to fly around the earth. About 100,000 people and millions of viewers around the world watched the launch of his ship from the spaceport at Cape Canaveral.
The flight of the Friendship-7 was not entirely successful: during the third flight of the Earth, engines began to fail, and the ship's hull overheated too much - they had to switch to manual control mode and land earlier than scheduled.
The capsule of the ship successfully splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean, where the astronaut, together with the aircraft, was picked up by the warship "Noah." Glenn's first words after arriving on Earth were: "It was too hot there."
Before Glenn, four people visited space - Soviet cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and German Titov, Americans Alan Shepard and Virgil Grissom. However, unlike the Soviet cosmonauts, both Americans carried out only suborbital flights.
Photo © jnsm.com.ua
On February 20, 1962, Glenn became the first American to fly around the earth. About 100,000 people and millions of viewers around the world watched the launch of his ship from the spaceport at Cape Canaveral.
The flight of the Friendship-7 was not entirely successful: during the third flight of the Earth, engines began to fail, and the ship's hull overheated too much - they had to switch to manual control mode and land earlier than scheduled.
The capsule of the ship successfully splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean, where the astronaut, together with the aircraft, was picked up by the warship "Noah." Glenn's first words after arriving on Earth were: "It was too hot there."
